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LIFE 


OF 


Lord    Lawrence 


R'J^BOSWORTH  ^MITH,    M.A. 

LATE   FELLOW  OF  TRINITY  COLLEGE,    OXFORD:    ASSISTANT   MASTER   AT   HARROW   SCHOOL; 

AUTHOR   OF   'CARTHAGE   AND  THE   CARTHAGINIANS,' 

'ROME   AND  CARTHAGE,' 

ETC. 


IN  TWO   VOLUMES 
Vol.    II. 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES     SCRIBNER'S     SONS 
1885 


TftOW'9 
N3  eOOKBtNDINO  COtM^AMt, 
NEW  VORK. 


CONTENTS 


THE     SECOND     VOLUME. 


CHAPTER   I. 


THE  HOUR  AND  THE  MAN. 
May — June  1857. 

PAGES 

Scope  of  chapters  on  the  Mutiny — Sir  John  Lawrence  the  ruling  spirit  in 
the  Punjab — 'Notour  system,  but  our  men' — Resources  of  Pun- 
jab— Europeans — Regulars— Irregulars — Which  way  would  the  Ir- 
regulars go? — Distribution  of  Troops — Chief  subordinate  Officers 
where  placed — Sir  John  Lawrence  at  Rawul  Pindi — Montgomery  at 
Lahore — His  Idiosyncrasies  and  his  Measures — Disarmament  of  Se- 
poys— Extreme  difficulty  of  the  Question — Other  Precautions — Um- 
ritsur  and  Ferozepore — Sir  John  Lawrence's  Opinion  of  Lahore 
Chiefs — '  Pucca  trumps' — His  Illness — His  first  Measures — 'Re- 
take Delhi' — His  Mind  imperial,  not  provincial — His  first  Tele- 
grams— His  first  Letters — His  Predictions — Determines  to  raise 
fresh  Troops — The  Movable  Column  and  Neville  Chamberlain — 
Responsibility  of  each  District  Officer— Council  at  Rawul  Pindi, 
and  what  went  on  there — General  Reed — Letter  to  Mangles — Sir 
John  Lawrence's  Humour — Stirring  Letters  to  General  Anson — A 
forward  Policy — 'Do  something' — 'Take  a  wide  view' — 'Avoid 
isolation' — I,etters  from  General  Anson,  and  differences  of  Opin- 
ion— State  of  Things  at  Umballa — Loyalty  of  '  protected '  Sikh 
Chiefs,  Puttiala,  Jheend,  and  Naljha — Anson  will  not  disarm  the 
Troops — I'is  viva  of  .Lawrence — Commissariat  requires  sixteen 
days  ! — Cholera — Death  of  Anson — Sir  Henry  Barnard — Narrow 
escape  of  Siege  Train — Advance  on  Delhi — Battle  of  Budli-ke- 
Serai — Our  Position  on  the  Ridge— On  what  did  our  hopes  rest  ?    .  1-36 


CONTENTS  OF 


CHAPTER   II. 

MUTINY  POLICY  OF  JOHN  LAWRENCE. 
May — June  1S57. 

PAGES 

Practical  Justification  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  Policy — Maxims  in  dealing 
with  Mutiny — Move  Irregulars  in  from  Frontier — Isolate  the  Regu- 
lars— Raise  fresh  Troops — Utilise  national  Feelings  of  Sikhs — Keep 
the  Administration  going — Don't  go  too  fast — Report  everything — 
Coke — Wilde — Advantages  of  Position  at  Rawul  Pindi — Less 
worry,  more  Work — Bird's-eye  view — Near  to  frontiey— Tele- 
graphic communication — 'I  like  issuing  orders  by  telegraph' — 
Knowledge  of  his  Subordinates — 'Give  the  horses  their  heads' — 
Enormous  Correspondence — Lady  Lawrence  at  Murri — Reminis- 
cence by  Lady  Lawrence — By  Edward  Thornton — '  A  flagrant 
escapade ' — What  it  shows — '  Hang  the  cul-de-sac  ! ' — Caution  of  Sir 
John  Lawrence— Letters  to  Montgomery — Prudence — Letters  to 
Lord  Elphinstone  and  Major  Hamilton — Advocates  strong  Measures 
at  first — Opinion  of  Hodson — Letters  to  Lord  Canning,  Hervey 
Greathed,  and  Colvin — Utilises  his  Knowledge  of  Delhi — Bartle 
Frere  and  his  pre-eminent  Services  in  the  Mutiny — '  The  extremities 
must  take  care  of  themselves' — Frere  and  Lawrence  compared — 
Mutinous  letters  intercepted — Outbreak  in  Peshawur  District — Im- 
portance of  Peshawur — 'A  nest  of  devils' — A  Master-stroke — Its 
Influence  on  Borderers — Exploits  of  Nicholson — 'Terrible  cour- 
age'— Disaff'ection  of  Irregular  Cavalry — Fate  of  the  Fifty-fifth  and 
John  Becher — Lawrence  obliged  to  recall  to  Peshawur  Regiments 
which  he  had  sent  off  for  Delhi — General  Reed  goes  to  Delhi — Was 
General  Johnstone  to  come  to  Peshawur  ? — Lawrence  proposes  to 
give  Sepoys  their  Discharge  as  a  Safety-valve — His  Love  of  Jus- 
tice— His  Mercy — '  Clemency  Canning' — Correspondence  with  Ed- 
wardes  and  Cotton — 'Punish  to  deter,  not  for  revenge'  —  Punish- 
ment Parade  at  Peshawur — Eighty  men's  lives  saved  by  Lawrence — 
Outbreak  at  Jullundur — Lawrence's  Advice — Incapacity  of  John- 
stone— Four  Native  Regiments  go  off  for  Delhi — Indignation  of 
Lawrence — '  Some  of  our  Commanders  are  worse  enemies  than  the 
Mutineers  themselves' — George  Ricketts  at  Loodiana,  and  his  Ex- 
ploits— General  Gowan — Disarmament  at  Mooltan  by  Crawford 
Chamberlain — Selected  by  John  Lawrence  for  the  Purpose — Napo- 
leonic policy — 'Push  on' — Save  the  well-disposed — Separate  Pun- 
jabis from  Hindustanis,  and  save  them — Proclamation  to  Sepoys.     .      37~73 


THE  SECOND    VOLUME. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE  PUNJAB  AND   DELHI. 
June — July  1857. 

What  our  Presence  on  the  Ridge  implied — Three  striking  Illustrations 
of  Lawrence's  Character  in  three  Parts  of  Punjab  at  same  Time — 
Arrival  of  Guides  at  Delhi — Their  March — 'The  Ladies  '  of  the 
Guides  and  John  Lawrence — His  romantic  Affection  for  the  Guides — 
•Get  them  to  keep  themselves  clean  and  dry'— 'Their  old  battered 
faces' — Reminiscences  by  Sir  Henry  Daly — 'The  biggest  man  I 
have  ever  seen ' — '  King  John ' — Magnanimity — Neville  Chamberlain 
sent  to  Delhi — Nicholson  made  Brigadier- General — Significance  of 
this — Alexander  Taylor  sent  to  Delhi — His  Character  and  History — 
What  he  did  at  Delhi — Reminiscence  by  him — '  Nikkul  Seyn's 
Fakirs' — James  sent  to  Peshawur — 'I  will  get  on  with  anybody'  — 
Arthur  Brandreth — His  Characteristics — Reminiscence  by  him — 
Nihal  Sing  Chachi— Opinions  about  Hodson — Lawrence  refuses  to 
employ  him — 'Hodson's  Horse' — The  old  Sikhs — A  two-edged 
Weapon — Disappointment  when  Delhi  did  not  fall — Projects  of  As- 
sault—Differences of  Opinion — Incessant  fighting — Exploits  and  He- 
roes of  Dellii  Field  Force — Besieged,  not  Besiegers — Sufferings  and 
Losses— Stream  of  Reinforcements  to  Mutineers — General  Barnard 
— His  Strength  and  Weakness— His  Death — Baird  Smith — 'A 
gamester's  throw ' — Why  was  the  Ridge  not  given  up  ?— Unique  Posi- 
tion of  Sir  John  Lawrence — Holds  all  the  Threads  in  his  Hands — 
His  Influence  on  the  Ridge — In  Delhi  itself — Fate  of  a  Kashmiri — 
'  I  was  there,  and  therefore  I  know  it  was  so ' — His  Correspondents 
before  Delhi — Supplies  sent  by  him — Pioneers,  Sappers  and  Miners, 
Baggage-animals,  Carriage,  Sandbags,  Saddles,  Tents — Prudent 
Audacity — 'Too  much  zeal' — 'Don't  let  the  Punjabis  see  their 
strength ' — Careful  mixture  of  Races  in  new  Regiments — Divide  et 
Irnpera—'Ltiiers  to  Edwardes,  Montgomery,  Colton,  Reed,  Daly, 
and  Lord  Canning — Few  from  Lord  Canning — Why  ? — Advises  su- 
persession of  General  Hewitt — Overtures  from  Kingof  Delhi— Criti- 
cal Condition  of  our  Army  at  Dellii — Dangers  at  Lawrence's  own 
Doors — Rawul  Pindi — Jhelum — Sealkote — What  was  to  be  done  ? 
— 'Symptoms  of  Uneasiness' — Disarmament  at  Rawul  Pindi — Per- 
sonal Courage,  Presence  of  Mind,  and  Humanity  of  Lawrence — 
Letter  of  Artliur  Brandretli — Rising  at  Jlielum — Partial  Success — 
Rising  at   Sealkote— Complete  Success — The  Station  sacked — Es- 


viii  CONTENTS  OF 

PAGES 

cape  of  the  Mutineers — Nicholson  Brigadier-General  at  the  Head  of 
his  Column — Differences  of  Opinion — Disarms  two  Regiments — 
'  Don't  write  long  yarns' — His  Flank  March — His  Endurance — 
Anecdotes — Destruction  of  Sealkote  Mutineers — Views  of  Sir  John 
Lawrence — Always  regards  the  ultimate  as  well  as  the  immediate 
Consequences — Sends  Nicholson  to  Delhi 74-116 

CHAPTER   IV. 

ABANDONMENT  OF  PESHAWUR. 

June— August  1857. 

What  if  Delhi  should  not  fall  ? — Limits  to  Loyalty  even  of  Sikhs — Hy- 
pothetical Abandonment  of  Peshawur — Statesmanlike  View — Three 
Reasons  for  detailed  Explanation  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  Policy — 
Lord  Cranbrook's  Taunt — Lord  Lawrence's  own  Wish — Colonel 
Randall — Correspondence  with  Herbert  Edwardes  and  Lord  Can- 
ning— 'We  must  look  ahead' — Advantages  and  Disadvantages  of 
Peshawur — Views  of  Edwardes  and  Cotton — '  Delhi  is  not  India' 
— '  Don't  let  yourself  be  sucked  to  death  by  inches ' — '  Let  Delhi  go ' 
—  Edwardes'  Plan  would  have  required  us  to  retain  all  the  Euro- 
pean troops  in  the  Punjab' — Practical  Answer  of  Sir  John  Law- 
rence— 'Delhi  is  the  Critical  Point' — Appeals  for  more  Aid  from 
Delhi — Whispers  of  Retreat  from  Greathed  and  General  Wilson — 
Critical  Position  in  Punjab — Answer  of  John  Lawrence — '  I  look 
for  neither  fame  nor  abuse' — His  'unalterable  Resolution' — 'This 
is  the  crisis  of  our  fate ' — Letters  to  Wilson,  Daly,  Norman,  Ed- 
wardes, Cotton,  Lord  Canning — Termination  of  Peshawur  Episode 
— What  does  it  show  ? — Peshawur  the  '  dream  and  the  madness '  of 
Dost  Mohammed's  Life — Lawrence  alone  knew  the  exact  State  of 
Things  in  Punjab  and  at  Delhi — Memorandum  by  Sir  John  Law- 
rence after  Mutiny — His  Views  supported  by  Sir  James  Outram  and 
Sir  Neville  Chamberlain — Remark  by  Prince  Albert — Marked  Feat- 
ures in  Lawrence's  Character  brought  out  by  Peshawur  Episode — 
Breadth  of  View — Vitality  of  Action — Fearlessness  of  Responsibil- 
ity— Loyalty — Local  Experience — Moral  Courage — Two  Kinds  of 
Courage — Remark  to  Lady  Trevelyan — The  '  Happy  Warrior'       .    117-14^ 

CHAPTER  V. 

SIEGE  AND  CAPTURE  OF  DELHI. 

July — September  1857. 

Sir  John  I,awrence  leaves  Rawul  Pindi  and  arrives  at  Lahore — Nicholson 
and  his  Colunm — He  '  bags'  a  Battery — Drawbacks  to  his  Appoint- 


THE  SECOND    VOLUME.  ix 

PAGES 

ment — The  Lahore  Authorities—  Condition  of  Sepoys — To  be  pitied 
as  well  as  blamed — Outbreak  of  twenty-sixth  Regiment — Their  Es- 
cape and  their  Annihilation — Conduct  of  Cooper — '  The  Crisis  in 
the  Punjab  ' — His  own  Account  of  his  Proceedings — Opinions  of 
Lord  Canning,  Sir  John  Lawrence,  and  Lord  Stanley — '  That  nau- 
seous despatch ' — Outbreak  at  Ferozepore — Brigadier  Innes — Out- 
break at  Peshawur — Annihilation  of  Fifty-first  Regiment — Letters 
from  Edvvardes — '  News  from  Lucknow  ' — Death  of  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence — Sensation  produced  by  it — His  permanent  Influence — 
The  two  Brothers  once  more  compared — The  last  man  from  the 
Punjab — Runbeer  Sing  and  the  Kashmere  Contingent — Run  to  Jul- 
lundur — No  Reinforcements  from  England — The  Siege  Train — Con- 
dition of  Mutineers  in  Delhi — Arrival  of  Nicholson  on  the  Ridge — 
His  Appearance  and  Reception — His  great  Exploit  at  Nujjughur — 
Nobody  looks  askance  at  him  now — 'Knight  him  on  the  Spot' — 
*Two  irregular  Pillars' — Letters  to  Lord  Canning,  Lord  Elphin- 
stone,  Mangles,  Colvin,  Neville  Chamberlain,  Nicholson — '  Take 
Delhi,  or  perish  in  the  struggle!' — Floods  and  Pestilence — 'Old 
Nick '  is  a  forward  fellow — Nicholson's  Complaints  of  Everything 
and  Everybody — General  Archdale  Wilson — '  Keep  him  up  to  the 
Mark' — Letters  to  Wilson,  Norman,  Greathed — Anxious  to  save 
Sikhs  in  Delhi — Nicholson's  Opinion  of  Randall — Arrival  of  Siege 
Train,  of  Jummoo  Troops,  and  Wilde — '  We  have  sent  every  man 
we  could  spare,  perhaps  more' — Letters  to  Frere  and  Nicholson — 
Excitement  of  Nicholson— Letter  from  him — His  'pen-and-ink 
work  ' — Honours  in  store  for  him — Condition  of  the  General  in  com- 
mand— Fortifications  of  Delhi — Alexander  Taylor — The  Batteries — 
The  Bombardment — Efforts  of  the  Mutineers — Tlie  Breaches — The 
Assaulting  Columns — The  Assault — Nicholson  falls — Critical  Con- 
dition of  our  Force — *  Fall  back  or  go  on  ?' — Capture  of  City  and 
Palace — Capture  of  the  King — Capture  of  the  Princes — Their  Mur- 
der— Character  and  Career  of  Ilodson — Death  of  Nicholson — His 
Burial — Opinions  of  Hope  Grant,  Herbert  Edwardes,  Colonel  Ran- 
dall— Grief  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — His  General  Order — His  Opinion 
■ — Results  of  Fall  of  Delhi  on  Mutiny — Who  had  done  most  towards 
it  ? — Sir  John  Lawrence  and  his  Sul^ordinates — Their  Relations  to 
each  other — Did  his  Subordinates  save  the  Punjab  in  Spite  of  him  ? 
Some  Characteristics  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — Opinions  of  Sir  Robert 
Montgomery,  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  Sir  Henry  Norman,  Sir  Arch- 
dale  Wilson,  Lord  Canning  ........   145-igg 


X  CONTENTS  OF 

CHAPTER  Vr. 

JOHN  LAWRENCE  AS  A  CONQUEROR. 

Septemher  1S57 — February  1858. 

PAGES 

Delhi  did  not  fall  too  soon — Rising  at  Muni — Lady  Lawrence — Ris- 
ing at  Gogaira — Critical  Condition  of  Punjab — The  Punjabis  feel 
their  Strength — *  All  that  I  liave  done  has  been  off  my  own  bat ' — 
Prudence  of  Lawrence — The  Jungles — Reinforcements  from  Lahore 
— Redress  of  Grievances— Condemnation  of  Cruelty — Crawford 
Chamberlain  and  his  Exploits — Letters  from  Lawrence — Suppression 
of  Insurrection — Arthur  Brandreth  succeeded  by  Edward  Paske — 
Reminiscence  by  Paske — Gravest  Cause  of  Anxiety — Condition  of 
Delhi— Deaths  of  Colvin  and  Hervey  Greathed — Delhi  ultimately  to 
revert  to  Sir  John  Lawrence — Martial  Law — Looting  of  Delhi — 
Moving  Scenes — The  Prize  Agents — The  Military  Governor — The 
Magistrate — The  Palace  and  the  King  and  Queen — '  Plough  up 
Delhi ' — '  Sow  its  site  with  salt ' — '  Destroy  the  Jumma  Musjid' — 
Views  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  as  to  tlie  Shahzadahs — The  Population 
of  the  City — The  Prize  Agents,  the  King,  the  City,  and  the  Palace 
— The  Reign  of  Terror — The  Military  Commission  and  the  Special 
Commissioners — Did  Sir  John  Lawrence  swim  with  the  Stream  ? — 
Hodson's  Guarantees — Letters  to  Lord  Canning,  Lord  Elphinstone, 
General  Penny — Lawrence  goes  down  to  Delhi  to  stop  further 
Bloodshed  and  Plunder — His  Measures — Takes  away  Powers  of  Life 
and  Death  from  Individuals — Striking  Reminiscence  by  Sir  Richard 
Temple — Condemnation  of  what  had  been  done — '  It  is  not  half 
strong  enough  ' — Disposition  to  Revenge  in  Imperial  Races — Gen- 
eral Character  of  English  Rule  in  India — Views  of  Lord  Elphinstone, 
Lord  Canning,  the  Queen — Reminiscence  of  Lord  Canning  by  Sir 
Frederick  Ilalliday — Lady  Lawrence  joins  her  Husband  at  Lahore, 
and  leaves  for  England.  ........  200-232 

CHAPTER  Vn. 

JOHN  LAWRENCE  AS  A  PACIFICATOR. 

September  1857 — July  1S58. 

Views  of  the  Queen  and  Prince  Albert  on  the  Emergency  in  India — Sir 
Colin  Campljell  Commander-in-Chief — Earnestness  of  Lawrence's 
Letters  during  his  last  Eighteen  Months  in  India —  Vox  cygnea — Let- 
ters from  and  to  Sir  Colin  Campbell,  from  and  to  General  Mans- 
field, Chief  of  the  Staff — Mansfield's  View  of  Lawrence — First  Re- 
lief of  the  Residency  at  Lucknow — Ilavelock  and  Outram — Second 


THE  SECOND    VOLUME.  xi 

PACES 

Relief  by  Sir  Colin  Campbell — Abandonment  of  the  Residency  and 
Death  of  Havelock — Appeals  to  Lawrence  for  Aid — His  Answei' — 
Stream  of  Reinforcements  from  him  to  Sir  Colin  Campbell — Was 
the  War  to  be  one  of  Extermination  ? — Lawrence  in  favour  of  '  dis- 
criminating amnesty  ' — Presses  his  views  on  Mansfield,  Colin  Camp- 
bell, and  Lord  Canning — Capture  of  Lucknow  by  Sir  Colin  Camp- 
bell— Confiscation  Proclamation  in  Oude — Its  perplexing  Character 
— Condemned  by  Lawrence,  Outram,  and  Lord  Ellenborough — Lord 
Ellenborough's  Letter  and  Resignation — Sir  Robert  Montgomery, 
Chief  Commissioner  of  Oude — Punjab  the  Nurse  of  Indian  States- 
men as  well  as  Heroes — Instances — Punjab  Traditions  still  unbroken 
— Old  Punjabis  come  back — Lessons  to  be  drawn  from  the  Mission 
of  the  Lumsdens  to  Candahar — Silence  of  Lord  Dalhousie — He 
speaks  out  at  last — Correspondence  with  him — Correspondence  with 
Sir  CharlesTievelyan— His  Career — Remarks  of  Macaulay — Letters 
of  '  Indophilus'— The  Lawrence  Asylum — Civil  Service  thrown  open 
to  Competition — Views  of  Lawrence — '  Justice  degenerating  into  a 
savage  revenge  ' — '  General  war  of  white  man  against  black  ' — Il- 
lustrations— A  '  white  Pandy  ' — *  Peafowls,  partridges,  and  Pandies ' 
— '  The  avenger  ' — '  Do  you  fear  God  or  man  ? ' — Appeals  by  Law- 
rence in  favour  of  Amnesty  to  Sir  Colin  Campbell,  to  Lord  Canning, 
to  Lord  Dalhousie,  to  Lord  Stanley — Striking  I>etters — '  We  want 
a  discriminative  amnesty  and  a  dictator' — Correspondence  with  Mer- 
edith Townsend — The  '  Friend  of  India  ' — '  England  may  not  awake 
before  it  is  too  late' — Fall  of  Gwalior — Its  Recovery  by  Sir  Hugh 
Rose — Sir  Robert  Napier  in  Central  India — '  Deal  largely  with  the 
Sepoy  question  ' — At  last  Lawrence's  Views  win  the  Day — Fifteen 
thousand  Punjab  Sepoys  sent  to  their  Homes  without  Mishap — The 
'  Wafadar  Pultan,'  or  '  faithful  regiment ' — Rewards  of  faithful  Sikh 
Chiefs — Forced  Loan  repaid — Cry  for  '  elimination  of  all  unchristian 
principles  from  Government  of  India  ' — How  this  came  about — 
What  did  it  imply? — Religious  Character  of  chief  Punjabi  Officers 
— Rehgious  Belief  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — Manifesto  of  Sir  Herbert 
Edwardes — Reply  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — Its  comprehensive  and 
talented  Character — His  View  on  the  Bible  in  Schools,  on  Christian 
Missions — Endowment  of  native  Religions  by  the  State,  on  the  re- 
cognition of  Caste,  on  the  observance  of  Holy  Days  among  the  Na- 
tives, on  Native  Codes  of  Law,  on  public  Religious  Processions — 
'  Christian  things  done  in  a  Christian  way  ' — '  Unchristian  things 
done  in  the  name  of  Christianity' — Toleration  and  its  Growth  — 
Mosque  at  Agra  given  back — The  Queen's  Proclamation — Magna 
Charta  of  Religious  Liberty.  .......   233-283 


xii  COXTEIVTS   OF 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

RECOGNITION  OF  SERVICES. 

January  1S58— February  1859. 

PAGES 

End  of  East  India  Company — Congratulations  to  Sir  John  Lawrence — 
Honours — Lord  Pan  mure  and  the  G.C.B. — Freedom  of  the  City  of 
London — Baronetcy — Seat  in  the  Privy  Council — Seat  in  the  New 
Indian  Council  oiifered  him — Letter  of  Lord  Stanley — Why  not  a 
Peerage? — Resolution  of  Court  of  Directors  and  Proprietors — An- 
nuity of  2,000/. — Speeches  of  Sir  Frederick  Currie  and  Captain  East- 
wick — Quotation  from  Eastwick — '  Nurm  and  Gurm ' — Remark  of 
Lord  Clyde — Correspondence  with  Lord  Clyde — Letter  to  Currie  on 
his  Services  and  their  Reward — Was  Lawrence  to  be  Governor-Gen- 
eral?— Heiimueh — 'I  am  fairly  used  up,  and  want  to  go  home' — 
'  You  appear  to  be  an  evergreen ' — Who  was  to  take  his  Place  in 
the  Punjab? — Lawrence's  Views  of  Montgomery,  Edwardes,  Frere, 
etc. — Lieutenant-Governor  of  Punjab — Presses  for  'honours'  for 
his  Subordinates — Letters  to  Lord  Stanley — Sir  Alexander  Lawrence 
and  Charles  Barnard — Letter  to  his  Sister  Lelitia — Outbreak  of 
Cholera  at  Murri  and  Peshawur — Letter  to  Sydney  Cotton  on  Con- 
dition of  Soldiers — Last  visit  to  the  Frontier — Reminiscence  by 
Temple — State  Visit  to  Maharaja  of  Kashmere — Jung  Bahadur — 
His  Services  and  Views — Reminiscence  by  J.  H.  Batten — '  I  would 
liave  let  down  the  Maharani  on  Jan  Larens  ' — '  Don't  go  yourself — 
'Won't  something  happen  when  he  goes?' — Leave  of  Absence 
asked  for  and  given — Condition  of  Country — Danger  of  too  many 
Punjabi  Troops — First  sod  of  first  Punjab  Railway — Tarn  bello  quam 
pace — '  He  could  do  a  little  mischief — Farewell  Address  to  Sir 
John  Lawrence  from  Punjabis — His  Reply — He  sets  Sail — '  Be  pre- 
pared for  such  a  reception  in  England  as  no  one  has  had  for 
twenty  years '         ..........  284-313 

CHAPTER  IX. 

HOME  LIFE  IN  ENGLAND. 

February  1859 — December  1863. 

The  Dover  Pier — The  Family  Meeting — Addresses  of  Congratulation — 
The  Guildhall — Speech  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — Willis's  Rooms — 
Address  by  8,000  Persons — Letter  of  Mr.  Gladstone — D.C.L.  at 
Oxford  and  Cambridge — Scene  at  Oxford — Newdigate  Prize  Poem 
— Reminiscence    by    Mrs.    Kensington — Visit    to     Windsor — The 


THE  SECOND    VOLUME.  xiii 

PAGES 

Queen's  View  of  his  Services — Present  to  the  Queen — Letter  of  Sir 
Charles  Phipps — Interviews  with  Prince  Albert — His  Opinion  of 
Prince  Albert — Letter  of  Arthur  Kinnaird  to  the  '  Times ' — Article 
in  the  '  Times ' — Order  of  the  Star  of  India — The  first  Investiture 
and  the  Insignia — Domestic  Life  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — Dislike  of 
fashionable  Society— Mrs.  Hayes  and  Nora  Lawrence,  Daughter  of 
Sir  Henry — Visit  to  Ireland — House  and  Household — Friendship 
with  Captain  Eastwick — Missionary  Speech  of  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes 
— Visits  to  Worthing,  Richmond,  Inverary  Castle — The  Duke  of 
Argyll's  Opinion  of  Lawrence — Friendship  with  the  Duchess — Free- 
dom of  the  City  of  Glasgow — Reminiscence  by  Dr.  ]\Iacduff — Birth 
and  Death  of  Daughter — Tenderness  of  Lawrence  with  Children — 
Southgate  House — Country  Pursuits — Reminiscence  by  Rev.  John 
Smith,  of  Lyme — An  awkward  Hamper — New  Friends— The  Charles 
Bradleys,  the  Caters,  T.  C.  Sandars — Never  a  Party  Man — Views  on 
Russo-Turkish  and  American  Civil  War— Simplicity  of  Life — Lib- 
erality— Modesty — Character  of  his  Religious  Belief — Reminiscence 
by  Captain  Eastwick — The  new  Indian  Council — Work  not  congen- 
ial to  him — His  Colleagues  and  his  Chief — Extracts  from  Diary  of 
one  of  his  Colleagues — Death  of  Outram — Buried  in  Westminster 
Abbey — Lawrence  himself  afterwards  buried  near  him — Dean  Stan- 
ley— Bust  by  Woolner — Letters  to  Dr.  Hathaway — Retirement  of 
Lord  Stanley  from  India  Office — Impression  left  by  him — His 
Speech  at  Mansion  House  on  Sir  John  Lawrence-*-'  Heroic  Sim- 
plicity' — Sir  Cliarles  Wood  succeeds — Character  of  his  Rule — Re- 
organisation of  India — His  Energy  and  Ability — Abolition  of  local 
European  Army — '  White  mutiny' — Lord  De  Grey  Under-Secretary 
for  India — Reminiscence  by  him  as  Marquis  of  Ripon  and  Governor- 
General — Return  and  Death  of  Lord  Canning — Lawrence  expected 
to  succeed  him — Lord  Elgin — Character  of  his  Rule  and  early  Death 
Who  was  to  succeed  now  ? — Unwritten  Law — Border  War  decides 
the  Question — 'You  are  to  go  to  India  as  Governor- General ' — 
Reminiscence  by  Lady  Lawrence — Last  Days  in  England — Love  for 
his  youngest  Son  Bertie — The  Parting  Scene 311-337 

CHAPTER    X. 

JOHN   LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY   OF   INDIA.     1864. 

Scope  and  Object  of  chapters  on  Viceroyalty — Would  it  have  been  well 
if  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  died  after  the  Mutiny  ? — Approval  of  his 
appointment  by  all  parties — The  '  Times ' — Letters  from  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  Bishop  Wilberforce,  Duke  of  Argyll,  Duchess  of  Argyll, 


xiv  CONTENTS   OF 

PAGES 

Florence  Nightingale — Views  of  Anglo-Indian  newspapers — Dr. 
Hathaway,  his  Private  Secretary — Incident  of  Voyage  out — Recep- 
tion in  Calcutta — Sir  William  Denison — Special  difficulties  of  a  ci- 
vilian Viceroy — Special  Advantages — Arrears  of  work  cleared  up — 
Frontier  War  at  an  end — Order  Re-established — Independence  and 
Energy  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — Anecdotes — Dislike  of  Etiquette — 
Dislike  of  Extravagance — Reforms  in  the  Household — Attacks  of 
Indian  newspapers — Their  personalities — Dean  Stanley  and  the 
American  Press — A  nest  of  Hornets — Anecdotes — Story  of  Moravian 
Missionaries — Reminiscences  by  Dr.  Hathaway  and  Dr.  Farquahar — 
Story  of  the  Ostrich— Meets  Bishop  Cotton— Cotton's  Character, 
Career,  and  Death — Viceroy's  power  increasingly  checked  by  his 
Council  and  Secretary  of  State — Duties  of  Viceroy — His  boxes — 
•No  Arrears' — 'What  you  do,  do  thoroughly' — Members  of  his 
Council — Sir  Charles  Trevelyan — Sir  Robert  Napier — Sir  Henry 
Maine — Sir  Hugh  Rose — Chief  Provincial  Governor  and  Chief  Sec- 
retaries of  Departments — Their  ability — Letters  to  Captain  East- 
wick,  Sir  Erskine  Perry,  Sir  Frederick  Currie — Sailors'  Home — 
Sanitary  Reforms  in  Calcutta — Sir  John  Strachey — Trevelyan's 
Budget — Frere's  attack  on  Punjab  Frontier  Policy — A  Deus  ex 
Machiiid — Sir  John  Lawrence  goes  to  Simla — Meets  old  friends  in 
Delhi  district — Visit  to  Kussowlie — Account  of  eye-witness — Ques- 
tion of  migration  of  Government  to  Simla  and  change  of  Capital — 
Letters  from  and  to.  Sir  Charles  Wood — Advantages  of  Simla — The 
Permanent  Settlement  and  its  extension — Its  abuses  in  Bengal  and 
its  possible  advantages — Friction  with  Sir  Hugh  Rose — Strained  re- 
lations between  Governor-General  and  Commander-in-Chief  in  In- 
dia, common — Why  ? — Correspondence  with  Sir  Charles  Wood — 
How  to  mend  matters — Sir  John  Lawrence  saves  the  walls  of  Delhi — 
How  to  deal  with  Medical  theories — Friction  with  Sir  Bartle  Frere 
— Frere  and  Lawrence  compared  and  contrasted — Good  work  done 
by  each — Subjects  of  dispute  with  Bombay  Government — Financial 
Control — 'Spend  the  money  first  and  explain  afterwards' — Corre- 
spondence— General  Richard  Strachey — Magnanimity  of  Lawrence 
— His  appreciation  of  Frere 338-3S3 

CHAPTER    XI. 
THE   GREAT   DURBAR   AT   LAHORE. 

OCTOKER   1864. 

Week  at  Lahore  stands  alone  in  his  life — General  Character  of  Durbars 
— Specialties  of  this — The  gathering  and  splendour  of  the  Chiefs — 


THE  SECOND    VOLUME.  xv 

PAGES 

Arrival  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — Reception  at  the  Railway  Station — 
Private  Durbar  for  great  Chieftains — Sir  Robert  Montgomery  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of  the  Punjab — A  long  day's  work — Investiture  of 
Raja  of  Kuppurthala  with  Star  of  India — Opening  of  '  Lawrence 
Hall ' — Speeches  of  Sir  Robert  Montgomery  and  Sir  John  Lawrence 
— The  great  Durbar — Mixture  of  races  and  languages — Ambassadors 
from  Cabul  and  Khokand — Historical  significance  of  this  Durbar — 
Rapid  change  in  Punjab — Contrasts  of  past  and  present — The  chief 
Durbaris — The  Ceremonial — Speech  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  in  Hin- 
dustani— Its  effects  and  significance — Leaves  Lahore — Letters  to  and 
from  Sir  Charles  Wood — Letter  from  the  Queen    ....  384-396 

CHAPTER    XII. 

THE   VICEROYALTY.      1865- 1866. 

India  a  Country  of  violent  contrasts — The  Cyclone  at  Calcutta  and  its 
effects — Letters  from  Sir  John  Lawrence — Visit  to  Delhi — Arrival 
of  Lady  Lawrence  from  England — Death  of  Sir  Alexander  Lawrence 
— Letter  from  the  Queen — Financial  Difficulties — Sir  Charles  Tre- 
velyan  and  the  Income  Tax — He,  Montgomery  and  Edwardes  go 
home — Biography  of  Sir  Flenry  Lawrence — Changes  in  Council — Sir 
Robert  Napier  in  command  of  Bombay  army — His  Services^Pun- 
jabization  of  India — How  far  true — Lawrence's  view  of  patronage 
and  services — Colonel  Richard  Strachey,  and  Lawrence's  opinion  of 
him — Bhotan  War,  its  causes  and  difficulties — Its  Vicissitudes — Its 
equitable  termination — Sir  William  Mansfield  Commander-in-Chief 
of  Indian  army — Life  at  Simla — Reminiscence  by  Lady  Lawrence 
— Anecdotes  illustrating  Lawrence's  humour  and  bluntness  of  speech 
— Death  of  Mrs.  Hayes—'  The  Punjab  and  Grateley ' — Life  at  Bar- 
rackpore — The  Edward  Brandreths — Changes  in  Viceregal  House- 
hold— James  Girdon  and  Seymour  Blane — Resignation  of  Sir  Charles 
Wood — His  services  and  relations  to  Sir  John  Lawrence — Raised  to 
Peerage  as  Lord  Halifax — Succeeded  by  Lord  dc  Grey — Letter  from 
him — Commercial  disasters — Speculation — The  Bombay  Bank — The 
Orissa  Famine — Physical  features  of  Orissa — Divided  Responsibility 
— The  Board  of  Revenue  and  Sir  Cecil  Beadon — Part  borne  by  Sir 
John  Lawrence — Reminiscence  by  Dr.  Farquhar — Letters  by  Sir 
John  Lawrence  to  Secretaries  of  State — The  Famine  Commission — 
Opinions  of  Sir  George  Campbell,  Lord  Nortlibrook,  Sir-  Stafford 
Northcote — Lord  de  Grey's  Indian  policy — Lord  Cranbourne  suc- 
ceeds him — His  vigour — Grievances  of  local  army  settled — Extension 
of  irrigation — Earliest  efforts  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  for  irrigation —  « 


xvi  COXTEiXTS   OF 

PAGBS 

His  views  on  the  subject — Great  works  begun — Views  of  railways — 
Raciness  of  Lord  Cranbourne — Letter  from  him — Great  Durbar  at 
Agra — Its  Characteristics — Honours  conferred — Maharaja  of  Joud- 
pore — Speech  of  the  Viceroy — Visit  to  Gwalior — Its  History — An- 
ecdote of  Scindia 397-443 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE   VICEROYALTY.     1S67— 1868. 

Efforts  to  relieve  distress  in  Orissa — Speech  of  Viceroy — Frere,  Beadon, 
and  Denisongo  home — The  Yule  brotherhood — Colonel  Henry  Yule 
— Sir  George  Yule  and  Sir  William  Muir — Services  of  Muir — Ques- 
tion of  Mysore — Views  of  Lawrence — Resignation  of  Lord  Cran- 
bourne— Sir  Stafford  Northcote  succeeds — Financial  difficulties  again 
— Agitation  about  Licence  Tax — Views  of  Lawrence — Comparative 
merits  of  English  and  Native  rule — Letters  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — 
The  Nawab  of  Tonk — Yun-Nan — Yakoob  Beg — Bokhara — The 
Abyssinian  war  and  Sir  Robert  Napier — His  Services — Opinion  of 
retention  of  Candahar — Sliould  India  bear  the  expenses  of  Imperial 
wars  ? — Views  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — His  relations  to  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote — Sir  Stafford  Northcote's  opinion  of  him — Ill-health  of 
Sir  John  Lawrence — Talks  of  Retiring — His  difficulties  with  his 
Council — Great  Durbar  at  Lucknow — Its  historical  significance — 
Family  interest  attaching  to  it — Marriage  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's 
eldest  daughter — Lady  Lawrence  leaves  for  England — Norman  Mac- 
leod — Sir  John  Strachey — Sir  Henry  Durand,  and  difficulties  in 
dealing  with  him — Rapid  Progress  in  all  respects  in  1868 — Letters 
to  Sir  Stafford  Northcote — Views  on  Travellers  in  Central  Asia,  on 
Ireland,  on  the  Afghans — Lord  Mayo  to  succeed  him — 'Black 
Mountain '  Campaign — Duke  of  Argyll  succeeds  Sir  Stafford  North- 
cote— Reminiscence  by  Sir  John  Strachey  on  Viceroyalty  of  Sir 
John  Lawrence      ........••  444-474 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

TENANT-RIGHT   AND   FOREIGN   POLICY.     1864— 1869. 

Two  Questions  most  Characteristic  of  Viceroyalty — Difficulties  of  Tenant- 
Right  question — Moral  courage  of  Lawrence  in  dealing  with  them 
— No  other  Viceroy  could  have  done  what  he  did — Disputes  in  Ben- 
gal— The  Zemindars  and  the  Ryots — Indigo  Cultivation — What  is 
'  fair  rent '  ? — Letters  to  Captain  Eastwick  and  Sir  Erskine  Perry — 
•  Sir  Henry  Maine  his  chief  helper — '  Specific  performance' — Letter 


THE  SECOND    VOLUME.  xvii 

PAGES 

to  Sir  Stafford  Northcote — Tenant-Right  in  Oude — Lord  Canning's 
Proclamation — Its  Object  and  Effects — Sir  Ciiarles  Wingfield  and 
Sir  Henry  Davies — Rights  of  Cultivators  extinguislied — Tremendous 
outcry  against  Sir  Jolin  Lawrence — His  moral  Courage — Letters  to 
Sir  Charles  Wood,  Sir  Frederick  Currie,  Captain  Eastwick — Sir 
John  Strachey,  Chief  Commissioner  of  Oude — His  Efforts — Settle- 
ment of  the  Question — Tenant-Right  in  Punjab — New  Settlement 
there,  and  danger  of  Agrarian  Revolution — Debate  at  Simla — Views 
of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  Sir  Henry  Maine,  Sir  John  Strachey,  Mr. 
Seton-Karr — Reminiscence  by  Sir  John  Strachey  on  Sir  John  Law- 
rence and  Tenant-Right  question — John  Stuart  Mill — Cry  for  a  Ter- 
ritoral  Aristocracy — Doomed  to  Failure — His  View  of  Sir  Jofin 
Lawrence's  Character — Foreign  Policy  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — Con- 
tinuous Policy  from  Lord  EUenborough  to  Lord  Northbrook — Per- 
sonal knowledge  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — '  Masterly  Inactivity '  and 
its  meaning — Progress  of  Russia  in  Central  Asia — How  was  it  to  be 
met? — 'Backward'  and  'Forward'  policy — The  Scinde  school — 
Its  Advocates  and  tlieir  views — The  Punjab  school — Its  Advocates 
and  their  views — Practical  maxims  of  Lawrence  in  dealing  with 
Afghans  and  Russians — Steps  taken  during  his  Viceroyalty — Life 
and  Character  of  Dost  Mohammed — His  Relations  to  us — His 
Advice  to  Lawrence — Scramble  for  Empire  at  his  death,  and  its 
vicissitudes  for  five  years — The  rival  candidates,  Afzul  Khan,  Azim 
Khan,  and  Shere  Ali — Strange  Career  and  Character  of  Shere  Ali 
— The  Saul  of  Afghan  History — His  relations  to  successive  Vice- 
roys— Resolution  and  Consistency  of  Lawrence — Recognition  of  de 
facto  rulers — Goodwill  to  Afghans — Views  of  five  successive  Secre- 
taries of  State  on  his  policy,  Sir  Charles  Wood,  Lord  de  Grey,  Lord 
Cranbourne,  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  Duke  of  Argyll — Occupation  of 
Quetta — Why  urged  by  '  Forward  school ' — Sir  Stafford  Northcote 
and  *  Russophobia ' — Sir  Henry  Rawlinson's  memorandum — How 
viewed  in  India — Sir  John  Lawrence's  Legacy  to  his  successors — 
How  would  he  have  dealt  with  Russia,  had  he  been  in  Lord  Lytton's 
place  ? — Weight  of  Indian  authority  on  his  side — General  Character 
and  Results  of  his  Viceroyalty — '  I  am  only  a  cracked  pot ' — Judg- 
ment of  Dr.  George  Smith,  editor  of  '  Friend  of  India  ' — Influence 
of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  private  Character,  and  of  his  Viceregal 
Court — 'Those  niggers' — Hindrances  to  Christianity — Lord  Mayo 
reaches  India — Farewell  Dinner  to  Sir  John  Lawrence — Speech 
by  Sir  William  Mansfield — Speech  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — '  Be  just 
and  kind  to  the  natives  of  India ' — The  best  of  Services — Reminis- 
cence by  Colonel  Randall — Striking  scene  in  Government  House — 


xviii  CONTENTS  OF 

PAGES 

Lord  Dalhousie,  Lord  Canning,  and  Sir  John  Lawrence — Reception 
of  Lord  Mayo — Sir  John  Lawrence  leaves  for  England — Character 
of  his  forty  years  in  India       ........  475-516 

CHAPTER  XV. 

LAST   YEARS   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.     1869— 1879. 

Character  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  last  ten  years — Lands  in  England — 
Broken  health — The  Peerage — Letter  of  Mr.  Gladstone — His  Pen- 
sion and  his  Maiden  Speech  —  '  Lord  Lawrence  of  the  Punjab  and 
Grateley ' — Changes  in  his  family — His  Sons — Marriage  of  his 
Daughters — The  Buxton  Family— The  Home  Circle — MissGaster — 
HisFriends  old  and  new — His  Sunday  afternoons — Visits  to  Lynton, 
Clifton,  &c. — The  first  School  Board — Why  did  Lord  Lawrence 
stand  for  it  ? — Elected  Chairman — Reminiscence  by  Mr.  Lafone — 
Character  of  his  Chairmanship — His  dislike  of  Boards — Reminis- 
cence by  Edward  Buxton — Reminiscence  by  Lady  Lawrence — Tour 
on  the  Continent — Paris,  the  Riviera,  Rome,  Naples — Eruption  of 
Vesuvius — The  Tyrol — His  last  Tour — Work  in  London — School 
Board — Guy's  Hospital — Megasra  Commission — Marriage  of  his 
eldest  son,  John — Brocket!  Hall — His  fondness  for  it — Retires  from 
School  Board — Reminiscence  by  Mr.  Croad,  Clerk  of  Board — 
Speech  of  John  Bright — Charitable  work  in  London — His  opinion 
of  Missions  and  Missionaries — His  youngest  son  sent  to  Harrow — 
The  Harts  and  the  Lawrences — Visits  of  Lord  Lawrence  to  Har- 
row— Failure  of  Eyesight — Reminiscence  by  Lady  Lawrence — An 
unsuccessful  operation — Great  sufferings — Loss  of  Sight — Partial 
recovery  of  one  Eye — Mr.  Bowman  and  other  friends — Marriage  of 
his  daughter  Emily  and  Henry  Cuningham — His  right  hand  on  the 
School  Board — Autumn  in  Inverness — Reminiscence  by  Miss  Gas- 
ler — Anecdotes  of  Lord  Lawrence — Autumn  at  Stonehouse,  Isle  of 
Thanet — Brought  to  the  front  by  aggression  on  Afghanistan — 
Speeches  in  the  House  of  Lords — Interest  in  India — Knowledge  of 
battles  going  on — His  policy  pursued  by  his  successors,  Lord  Mayo 
and  Lord  Northbrook — The  Umballa  Meeting — The  Simla  Meet- 
ing— Attitude  of  Shere  Ali — Conditions  of  the  problem  the  same — 
Change  of  policy  by  Lord  Salisbury — Letter  of  Sir  Bartle  Frere, 
and  its  aggressive  proposals — Occupation  of  Quetta — Answer  of 
Lord  Lawrence — Continuity  of  policy  proved  by  letters  of  Lord 
Mayo  and  Lord  Northbrook — Rejoinder  of  Sir  Bartle  Frere— Gov- 
ernment of  India  resists  Lord  Salisbury's  proposals — Resignation  of 
Lord  Northbrook — Lord  Lytton,  Governor-General — The  policy  of 


THE  SECOND    VOLUME.  xix 

PAGES 

Aggression — Sir  George  Colley — His  opinion  on  the  Frontier 
'  worth  that  of  twenty  Lawrences' — His  Character  and  Career — 
Hannibal  and  Phormio — First  steps  of  Lord  Lytton — His  threats — 
Occupation  of  Quetta — The  Peshawur  Conference —Residence  of 
British  officers  in  Afghanistan  insisted  on — Pathetic  appeal  of  Shere 
Ali — Who  was  in  the  right  ? — Reticence  of  Indian  and  English 
Governments  on  the  whole  question — Feelings  and  objects  of  Lord 
Lawrence — Reminiscence  by  Miss  Gaster — Her  services  to  Lord 
Lawrence — Question  put  by  Duke  of  Argyll — An'wer  of  Lord  Sal- 
isbury— Its  Results — Reception  of  Russian  Embassy  at  Cabul — 
What  ought  we  to  have  done? — What  did  we  do? — Mission  of  Sir 

Neville  Chamberlain The  Telegrams — War  resolved  on — Could 

anything  be  done  to  stop  it  ? — Attitude  of  Lord  Lawrence — His 
difficulties  and  his  resolve — His  first  letter  to  the  '  Times' — His  Pre- 
dictions— '  A  shot  between  wind  and  water  ' — Its  results — Other 
letters  to  the  '  Times ' — '  A  war  the  evidence  for  which  we  are 
ashamed  to  produce ' — Lord  Lawrence,  Chairman  of  Afghan  Com- 
mittee— His  correspondence  with  Lord  Beaconsfield — The  'Scien- 
tific frontier ' — Meeting  of  Parliament — Views  of  high  Indian  au- 
thorities— Treaty  of  Gundamuck  and  Yakoob  Khan — Objects  of 
the  war  secured,  for  a  month  or  so — '  They  will  all  be  murdered, 
every  one  of  them  ' — Renewal  of  war — Battle  of  Maiwand — Results 
of  the  two  wars — 'You  may  do  your  worst,  but  the  issue  is  in  the 
hands  of  God ' — Energy  and  moral  courage  of  Lord  Lawrence — 
Marriage  of  second  son  Henry — Lord  Lawrence's  last  visit  to  the 
House  of  Lords — His  last  speech — His  last  illness — His  last  mo- 
ments— His  death 5 17-567 


Erratum. 
Page  23,  line  21,  for  eight  read  eighty. 


ILLUSTRATIONS   TO    VOL.   IL 

PORTRAIT to  face  tiih-page 

PLAN  OF  Delhi,  1857,  .  *...."     page  145 


LIFE     OF 

LORD    LAWRENCE 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE   HOUR   AND   THE   MAN. 

May — June  1857. 

The  story  of  the  Indian  Mutiny  is  a  thrice-told  tale,  and  one  which, 
in  spite  of  its  romantic  interest  and  the  labour  which  I  have  neces- 
sarily spent  in  studying  it  as  a  whole,  I  have  no  intention  of 
attempting  to  tell  here  again.  My  task,  as  the  biographer  of  Sir 
John  Lawrence,  is  more  limited,  but  perhaps  not  less  difficult.  It 
is  to  restrict  myself,  as  rigidly  as  possible,  to  the  history  of  those 
movements  which,  inspired  by  his  energy,  controlled  by  his  prudence, 
and  carried  out  by  his  resolution  and  that  of  his  lieutenants,  first, 
secured  from  imminent  danger  the  province  over  which  he  ruled, 
then  made  it  the  storehouse,  the  arsenal,  the  recruiting  ground,  the 
base  of  operations  for  much  that  was  done  outside  of  it,  and,  lastly, 
led  up  to  the  crowning  achievement  of  his  life — it  might  have  been 
the  crowning  achievement  of  any  life — the  siege  and  capture  of 
Delhi.  The  siege  of  Delhi,  indeed,  under  all  its  circumstances,  in 
the  historic  interest  attaching  to  the  city,  in  the  strength,  the  num- 
bers and  the  resources  of  the  besieged,  in  the  weakness,  the  priva- 
tions, the  difficulties  of  the  handful  of  men  who,  perched  on  a  ridge 
at  one  corner  of  its  vast  circumference,  with  their  rear  and  both 
their  flanks  exposed  to  attack,  called  themselves  its  *  besiegers,' 
finally,  in  the  momentous  stake  involved  in  the  success  or  the 
abandonment  of  the  operations,  stands  forth  with  few  parallels  in 
modem  history. 

VOL.   II. — I  I 


2  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

Even  thus  limited,  the  field  which  I  have  to  attempt  to  cover  is 
sufficiently  vast.  The  chief  actors  in  it  are  so  commanding  and 
their  deeds  are  performed  in  so  many  widely  scattered  places,  and 
with  such  varying  degrees  of  responsibility  and  power,  that  it  will 
be  a  task  of  no  slight  difficulty — perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  my  dif- 
ficulties— to  group  them,  in  proper  relief  and  in  their  due  propor- 
tions, round  the  man  whom,  whether  they  agreed  with  or  differed 
from  him,  whether  they  deemed  him  too  cautious  or  too  impetuous, 
too  merciful  or  too  severe,  too  self-sufficing  or  too  ready  to  listen  to 
what  everyone  had  to  urge,  all  alike  recognised  as  their  ruling 
spirit  ;  as  one  whose  character,  whose  judgment,  and  whose  will 
were  felt  instinctively  by  all  to  be  the  best  security  that  everything 
which  he  willed,  or  decided,  or  did — whether  it  commended  itself 
to  their  judgment  or  not — would,  in  the  long  run,  turn  out  right. 

Before  the  Mutiny  had  run  its  course,  but  after  its  crisis  had  come 
and  gone,  an  application  reached  Sir  John  Lawrence  from  the  Resi- 
dent at  Berar,  asking  him  for  a  few  hints  as  to  his  system.  '  It  is 
not  our  system,'  he  sent  back  word,  '  it  is  our  men.'  And  it  was 
the  men  whom  his  brother  and  he  himself  had  first  brought  together, 
and  then  kept  together  by  the  methods  I  have  described  in  previous 
chapters  ;  the  men  whom  he  had  recognised,  in  spite  of  all  their 
angularity,  as  having  *  grit '  or  '  backbone  '  in  them  ;  who,  now,  in 
the  time  of  trial,  instinct  with  his  spirit,  and  with  his  simple-minded 
devotion  to  the  public  service,  rose  to  the  emergency,  were  not 
afraid  to  face  responsibility,  and  each  in  his  respective  sphere,  very 
often  in  utter  ignorance  of  what  was  being  done  by  others,  con- 
tributed his  part  towards  the  great  deliverance. 

What,  then,  we  may  ask,  first,  were  the  resources  of  the  Punjab  ? 
For  such,  we  may  be  sure,  was  the  question  which  crossed  and  re- 
crossed  the  mind  of  the  Chief  Commissioner  when,  on  receipt  of  the 
startling  message  at  Rawul  Pindi,  he  consumed,  as  I  have  mentioned 
in  the  first  chapter  of  this  biography,  his  own  thoughts  in  silence, 
pondering  the  full  magnitude  of  the  danger,  and  the  means  by  which 
he  might  best  meet  and  overcome  it. 

The  Punjab  was  the  frontier  province  of  our  empire,  and,  as 
such,  it  had  a  larger  force — European  and  native — than,  perhaps, 
any  five  other  provinces  in  India  taken  together.  The  European 
force  consisted,  in  round  numbers,  of  twelve  regiments — of  about, 
that  is,  eleven  thousand  men.  The  Hindustani  force,  who  were 
chiefly  Regulars,  numbered  thirty-six  thousand,  and  the  Punjabi 
local  force,  chiefly  Irregulars,  fourteen  thousand  men.  An  enor- 
mous army  this  !     But  was  it  a  source  of  weakness  or  of  strength  ? 


l8S7  THE   HOUR   AND   THE   MAN.  3 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  Hindustani  force,  over  which  there  was 
reason  to  think  that  the  spirit  of  mutiny  and  discontent  had  already, 
in  great  part,  spread,  was  half  as  large  again  as  the  European  and 
Punjabi  taken  together.  The  Latin  proverb,  '  the  more  slaves,  the 
more  enemies,'  was  therefore  one  which,  mutatis  mutandis,  might  be 
applied  with  as  much  truth  to  the  pampered  sepoys  of  the  Pun- 
jab, as  to  the  down-trodden  Roman  slaves.  And  if  this  were  so, 
then,  our  enemies  under  arms  in  the  Punjab,  and  trained  by  our- 
selves, out-numbered  the  Europeans  in  the  proportion  of  three  to 
one  ! 

But  what  of  the  Irregulars  ?  were  they  staunch  or  not  ?  If 
Staunch,  the  province  might  be  able  to  hold  its  own  till  succour 
came  from  without  ;  if  not,  the  game  was  clearly  up.  The  chances 
must  have  seemed  to  the  eager  and  anxious  mind  of  the  Chief 
Commissioner,  as  they  seem  to  us  now,  when  we  judge  by  the 
event,  almost  equally  balanced.  On  the  one  hand,  were  the  mem- 
ories of  the  Khalsa  and  of  Runjeet  Sing,  of  Ferozeshah  and  Chil- 
lianwallah,  hardly  as  yet  ten  years  old.  There  was  the  gulf  not  yet 
bridged  over — even  if  there  was  no  active  feeling  of  hostility — be- 
tween the  dark-skinned  native  and  the  fair-skinned  and  intruding 
foreigner.  There  Avere  the  dispossessed,  and,  therefore,  necessa- 
rily, in  some  degree,  discontented  nobles.  There  were  thousands  of 
Sikh  warriors,  now  peacefully  cultivating  their  fields,  but  men  whose 
right  hands  had,  assuredly,  not  forgotten  their  cunning,  and  in 
whom  the  cry  of  *  The  Guru  and  the  Khalsa  ! '  might  yet  stir  yearn- 
ings unutterable,  and  rally  them  to  the  battle-field.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  was  the  grand  fact  that  the  country  was  peaceful,  was 
prosperous,  was  contented,  and  that  it  had  been  governed  by  the 
Lawrence  brothers,  during  the  past  eight  years,  as  few  countries 
have  ever  been  governed.  There  was  the  hatred  of  the  Sikh  for 
the  Mohammedan  who  had  persecuted  him,  and  whom  he  had  per- 
secuted in  turn.  There  was  the  contempt  of  the  hardy  Punjabi, 
whatever  his  caste  or  his  creed,  for  the  less  manly  races  of  Oude  or 
Bengal.  Finally,  there  was  the  hope  of  plundering  the  revolted 
city,  the  home  of  the  Mogul,  under  the  Ikbal  of  the  Company. 

And  how  was  the  army,  whose  component  parts  I  have  just  de- 
scribed, distributed  ?  The  European  part  of  it,  on  which  alone,  in 
the  first  instance,  we  could  place  our  full  reliance,  was  massed  chiefly 
on  two  points  :  first,  at  or  near  Umballa,  on  what  had  been  our 
frontier  line  before  the  conquest  of  the  Punjab  ;  and,  secondly,  at 
or  near  Peshawur,  our  most  advanced  outpost  towards  Afghanis- 
tan.    At  Umballa  and  the  adjoining  stations  there  were  four,  and 


4  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

in  the  Peshawur  valley  three  out  of  the  whole  number  of  twelve 
European  regiments.  But  even  at  these  two  most  favoured  points, 
the  European  troops  were  considerably  outnumbered  by  the  Hindu- 
stani. At  Lahore,  at  Rawul  Pindi,  at  Ferozepore,  at  Jullundur, 
and  at  Hoshiarpore,  the  disproportion  was  greater  still ;  while  at 
Umritsur,  Sealkote,  Gurdaspore,  Jhelum,  and  Mooltan,  there  were 
either  no  European  troops  at  all,  or  they  formed  quite  an  insignifi- 
cant fraction  of  the  whole.  As  for  the  Irregular  force,  the  most 
critical  element  in  the  coming  struggle,  they  were  distributed  im- 
partially along  the  frontier  of  six  hundred  miles,  from  Huzara  to 
Mithancote  ;  and  since  the  annexation  they  had  been,  as  we  have 
seen,  sufficiently  employed  in  rendering  that  difficult  country  secure 
from  the  raids  of  the  robber  tribes  outside  of  it.  And  even  if  they 
should  prove  staunch  to  us,  the  question  still  remained  whether  to 
withdraw  them  from  the  frontier  and  employ  them  elsewhere,  would 
not  be  to  call  down  upon  us  other  and  greater  dangers  from  beyond. 
Of  two  regiments  belonging  to  the  Irregular  Force,  special  mention 
should  be  made  here.  At  Hoti  Murdan  was  the  famous  Guide 
Corps  under  Daly,  who,  as  experience  had  shown,  and  was  soon  to 
show  again,  were  ready  to  go  anywhere  and  do  anything  in  our  de- 
fence ;  while  at  the  frontier  posts,  above  Peshawur,  was  another 
regiment,  called,  from  the  romantic  valour  which  it  had  shown  in 
the  defence  of  Khelat-i-Ghilzai,  in  the  first  Afghan  war,  the  Khe- 
lat-i-Ghilzais — and  who,  like  the  Guides,  might,  it  was  hoped,  be 
depended  on  to  do  equally  good  service  now.  Once  more,  besides 
these,  there  was  the  Military  Police — the  Lahore  division  of  them, 
under  the  command  of  Richard  Lawrence,  '  Dick's  Invincibles,'  as 
his  brother  used  to  call  them.  They  were  a  body  of  men  some  fif- 
teen thousand  strong,  who,  being  drawn  from  much  the  same  classes 
as  the  Irregular  force,  might  be  expected  to  go  with  them,  whether 
for  us  or  against  us. 

There  was  thus,  it  will  be  seen,  no  single  place  of  importance  in 
the  Punjab  which  could  be  looked  upon,  at  the  moment  of  the  out- 
break, as  beyond  the  reach  of  anxiety.  But  if  there  was  no  point 
of  danger  which  was  held  by  a  force  on  whom  we  could  depend, 
neither  was  there  any  which  was  without  at  least  one  man  on  whom 
full  reliance  might  be  placed,  a  man  and  not  a  machine,  one  who 
would  do  all  that  was  practicable,  and,  perhaps,  not  a  little  that 
seemed  impracticable,  in  our  defence.  At  Lahore  were  Mont- 
gomery and  Macleod,  Arthur  Roberts,  the  Commissioner,  Richard 
Lawrence,  the  Chief  of  the  Police,  James  Macpherson,  the  Military 
Secretary,  each  of  them  a  host  in  himself,  and  each  of  them,  it  will 


l857  THE   HOUR   AND   THE   MAN.  5 

be  remembered,  either  bred  up  in  the  school,  or  the  warm,  personal 
friend  of  the  Chief  Commissioner.  At  Peshawur,  the  most  danger- 
ous post  of  all,  were  Edvvardes,  the  Commissioner,  Nicholson,  the 
Deputy  Commissioner,  and  Sydney  Cotton,  in  command  of  the 
Regulars.  At  Kohat  and,  happily,  within  hail  of  the  Peshawur 
authorities,  was  the  Brigadier  of  the  frontier  force,  and  the  hero  of 
a  score  of  frontier  fights,  Neville  Chamberlain.  At  Mooltan  were 
Hamilton,  the  Commissioner,  and  Crawford  Chamberlain,  the  Com- 
mandant of  the  first  Irregular  Cavalry,  better  known  as  Skinner's 
Horse.  Over  the  Trans-Sutlej  territory  presided  Lake,  over  the  Cis- 
Sutlej,  Barnes,  both  of  them  men  after  John  Lawrence's  own  heart. 
At  Ferozepore  were  Marsden,  and  Van  Cortlandt  of  Khalsa  fame ; 
at  Umritsur,  Cooper  ;  at  Umballa,  Douglas  Forsyth  ;  at  Loodiana, 
the  most  turbulant  of  cities,  Ricketts  ;  at  Jullundur,  Farrington ; 
at  Kangra,  Reynell  Taylor.  Finally,  at  Rawul  Pindi  was  Edward 
Thornton,  the  Commissioner  of  the  District,  and  at  the  same  place, 
as  luck  would  have  it,  the  great  civilian  chieftain,  with  his  soldier's 
heart,  who  was  thence,  during  the  first  three  months  of  the  Mutiny, 
to  sweep  his  whole  province  with  his  searching  glance,  to  hold  it  in 
his  iron  grasp,  and  as  time  passed  on,  wielding,  by  his  own  inherent 
force  of  character,  no  less  than  by  the  irresistible  march  of  events, 
almost  the  powers  of  the  Governor-General  and  Commander-in- 
Chief  in  one,  was  to  praise  and  to  condemn,  to  punish  and  to  re- 
ward, to  command  and  to  forbid,  to  stimulate  every  enterprise,  to 
sanction  every  appointment,  to  direet  every  movement  of  troops, 
from  the  gloomy  portals  of  the  Khyber  even  to  the  ridge  before  Delhi. 
The  absence  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  from  Lahore  served  to  throw 
the  responsibility  and  the  credit  of  dealing  the  first  and  most  de- 
cisive blow  at  the  rising  mutiny,  on  those  he  had  left  behind  him 
there.  Perhaps  it  was  well  that  it  was  so.  Perhaps  it  was  also  well 
that  the  telegraphic  communication  between  Lahore  and  Rawul 
Pindi  was  interrupted  for  the  time,  and  that  the  message  which 
flashed  to  the  capital  of  the  Punjab  early  on  Tuesday  morning, 
May  12,  the  news  of  the  capture  of  Delhi  by  the  mutineers,  did 
not  reach  the  Chief  Commissioner  by  the  same  route.  For  it  was 
these  difficulties  of  communication  which  entitled  or  compelled  his 
subordinates  to  act  at  the  outset,  as  he  himself  was  entitled  and 
compelled  shortly  afterwards  to  act  on  a  wider  field — at  once  and 
with  decision — and  so  gave,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  Mutiny,  a 
splendid  example  of  what  could  be  done  by  men  who  were  not 
afraid  of  that  bugbear  of  officials  everywhere — the  bugbear  of  re- 
sponsibility. 


6  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

The  mantle  of  John  Lawrence  had  fallen,  for  the  time,  on  his 
chief  lieutenant  and  his  life-long  friend,  Robert  Montgomery  ;  and 
by  no  possibility,  as  I  have  said  before,  could  it  have  fallen  on 
worthier  shoulders,  or  on  a  man  who,  by  his  knowledge  of  the 
country  and  of  the  natives,  of  the  points  of  danger  and  of  the 
sources  of  our  strength,  above  all,  by  the  idiosyncrasies  of  his  own 
character,  was  better  able  to  deal  with  the  emergency.  Whatever 
Montgomery  did  he  did  quickly,  with  decision,  with  a  will.  If  he 
did  not  care  to  estimate  all  the  difficulties  which  encompassed  a 
particular  course  of  action,  it  is  certain  that  by  not  doing  so  he 
often  succeeded  in  brushing  them  out  of  his  path.  John  Lawrence, 
on  the  contrary,  with  all  his  *  vast  vigour  and  resolution,'  was  by 
nature  cautious  and  circumspect,  so  cautious  and  so  circumspect 
that  his  enemies  have  endeavoured  to  make  capital  out  of  it.  He 
liked  to  turn  a  thing  over  in  his  mind,  to  be  sure  that  he  saw  all 
that  was  to  be  said  for  or  against  it,  before  he  decided.  He  could 
on  emergencies  think  very  quickly,  but  he  preferred  to  think  at 
leisure.  He  *  never  acted  on  mere  impulse.'  He  used  to  remark 
that  though,  while  deliberating  on  a  difficult  question,  he  often 
changed  his  mind,  he  generally  came  back,  at  last,  to  the  view 
which  he  had  taken  instinctively  at  first.  And  thus,  in  cases  of 
real  emergency,  he  was  able  to  act  at  once  with  a  feeling  of  greater 
confidence  than  is  generally  the  case  with  men  of  his  habit  of  mind. 
Now,  on  the  momentous  question  which  came  before  Montgomery 
and  his  friends,  on  that  eventful  morning,  it  is  hardly  conceivable 
that,  bound  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  to  look  beyond  Lahore  to  the 
safety  of  his  whole  province,  and,  beyond  that  again,  to  the  safety 
of  the  empire,  he  would  not  have  felt  more  misgiving  than  they 
appear  to  have  done  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  when  he  first  heard  of 
the  disarmament,  he  was  inclined,  in  spite  of  its  success,  to  ques- 
tion its  wisdom.  It  is  highly  characteristic  of  his  absolute  honesty 
of  mind  that  he  expressed  his  doubts  on  the  subject.  If  it  is  true 
with  most  people,  that  '  nothing  succeeds  like  success,'  it  was  not, 
in  his  mind  at  all  events,  the  whole  truth.  *  Montgomery  has  done,' 
exclaimed  a  high  authority  at  the  Headquarters  of  the  army,  when 
he  first  heard  of  the  disarmament,  '  either  the  wisest  or  the  most 
foolish  thing  in  the  world.'  And  the  utterance,  if  it  was  oracular, 
was  also  strictly  true.  What  might  not  have  been  the  result,  if  the 
Sepoys  at  Lahore  had  refused  to  lay  down  their  arms,  and  rising 
in  open  mutiny  had,  some  few  of  them,  been  cut  down  at  once, 
while  the  remainder  scattered  broadcast  over  the  country,  carrying 
with  them  the  flames  of  violence  and  war  ?     In  that  case,  the  evil 


i857  THE  HOUR   AND   THE   MAN.  7 

we  most  dreaded  would  have  been  precipitated  upon  us  by  our  own 
precautions.  There  would  have  been  no  time  to  send  messengers 
to  the  more  remote  stations  in  the  Punjab  to  warn  them  of  what 
was  coming  ;  and  the  Sepoys  of  Mooltan,  and  of  half-a-dozen  other 
important  places,  in  which  the  Europeans  were  few  in  number, 
seeing  that  the  case  had  been  prejudged  against  them  at  Lahore, 
and  feeling  that  their  turn  would  come  next,  would  have  antici- 
pated the  evil  day,  and  rising  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  have  given 
themselves  one  chance  more.  The  question,  indeed,  in  those  early 
days,  whether  it  was  better  to  appear  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  muti- 
nous feelings  of  the  Sepoys,  or  to  arouse  them  further,  to  show  our 
suspicions  or  to  conceal  them,  was  a  question  on  which  there  might 
well  be  great  differences  of  opinion,  and  it  was  as  fortunate  for  the 
Punjab  that  it  possessed  a  chief  ruler  who,  with  his  wider  respon- 
sibilities, would  have  thought  twice  before  he  made  the  first  plunge, 
as  that  it  had  others,  in  the  positions  nftct  below  his,  who,  seeing 
the  immediate  danger,  determined,  without  the  hesitation  of  an 
hour,  to  be  the  first  to  strike  the  blow.  Again  and  again,  in  the 
course  of  the  Mutiny,  did  this  momentous  question  come  to  the 
front.  And  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  Avhile  officers  in  command  of 
regiments  were,  from  the  most  honourable  feelings,  almost  always 
for  delay,  and  for  trusting  their  men  to  the  end,  the  civilians,  with 
John  Lawrence  at  their  head,  were  almost  always  for  immediate 
action.  The  difficulties,  indeed,  of  making  a  decision  were  greatly 
lessened  when  once  the  ice  had  been  broken,  and  the  success  of 
the  first  attempt  at  Lahore  was  an  omen — valuable  not  to  the 
superstitious  or  the  over-anxious  alone — of  the  ultimate  result. 

The  story  of  the  disarmament  has  been  often  told  before,  but  it 
has  so  important  an  influence  on  everything  that  followed,  and  is 
so  characteristic  of  the  men  whom  it  was  the  delight  of  the  Chief 
Commissioner  to  gather  round  him  and  to  honour,  that  I  must  indi- 
cate its  general  outlines.  The  telegram  from  Delhi  reached  Lahore 
early  in  the  morning  of  May  12,  and  Montgomery,  before  the  secret 
had  oozed  out,  at  once  summoned  the  chief  civil  officers  to  a  Coun- 
cil. There  was  no  time  for  delay  ;  for  secret  information  had 
reached  him  through  Richard  Lawrence  that  all  four  regiments  in 
the  great  cantonment  at  Mean  Meer,  five  miles  distant,  were  pre- 
pared to  follow  the  example  of  their  Delhi  brethren,  whatever  it 
might  be.  *  Sahib,  they  are  up  to  this  in  it,'  said  a  trusty  Brahmin 
clerk  who  had  been  commissioned  to  enquire  into  their  feelings  as 
they  strolled  into  city  to  his  master,  Richard  Lawrence,  and  as  he 
spoke,  he  significantly  laid  his  finger  on  his  throat.      This  was 


8  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

enough  for  Montgomery,  and  a  motion  was  brought  forward  and 
unanimously  agreed  to  by  the  Council,  that  it  was  desirable  that 
the  Sepoy  regiments  should  be  at  once  deprived  of  their  gun-caps 
and  ammunition.  But  the  Civil  officers  had  no  authority  in  such  a 
matter,  and  so  Montgomery  and  Macpherson  rode  over  to  Mean 
Meer  to  urge  the  necessity  for  action  on  the  Brigadier  in  command. 
General  Corbett,  who  was  old  in  years  and  service,  was,  at  first, 
naturally  taken  aback  at  the  boldness  of  the  proposal,  but,  in  the 
course  of  the  afternoon,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  go  even  further, 
and  to  deprive  his  troops  not  merely  of  their  ammunition,  but  of 
their  arms. 

A  ball  was  to  be  given,  that  very  night,  to  the  officers  of  the  one 
European  regiment  in  the  station,  and  as  profound  secrecy  was 
essential  to  the  success  of  the  intended  disarmament,  it  was  not 
postponed.  A  dreary  amusement  enough  the  dance  must  have 
seemed  to  those  few  officers  who  were  in  the  secret,  and  who  felt 
that  they  must  pass  at  the  dawn  of  day  from  the  ball-room  to  the 
parade-ground,  which  might  well  prove  their  grave  !  The  thoughts 
of  one  and  of  another  may  well  have  leapt  back  to  that  other  ball- 
room at  Brussels,  which  heard  'the  cannon's  opening  roar'  and 
ushered  in  the  crowning  victory  of  Waterloo. 

A  general  parade  had  been  ordered  in  the  usual  course  for  the 
morning  of  the  13th,  and  Montgomery  and  Macleod,  Macpherson 
and  Roberts,  Richard  Lawrence,  Robert  Egerton  and  Hutchinson, 
rode  over  to  the  ground,  prepared  to  witness  the  successful  execu- 
tion of  the  bold  step  which  they  had  advised,  or  to  be  among  the 
first  to  fall  if  it  should  miscarry.  The  Sepoy  force  consisted  of 
three  regiments  of  foot,  the  i6th,  the  26th,  and  the  49th,  and  of  one 
light  cavalry  regiment,  the  8th.  The  Europeans  who  were  to  dis- 
arm them  consisted  of  five  companies  only  of  a  single  regiment,  the 
8 1st,  with  twelve  guns.  The  Sepoy  regiments  appeared  on  the 
ground,  quite  unconscious  that  there  was  anything  unusual  in  prep- 
aration. A  simple  manoeuvre  brought  them  face  to  face  with  the 
Europeans,  and  made  it  dangerously  easy  for  them  to  count  their 
foes.  While  they  were  thus  drawn  up,  a  Staff  officer  read  aloud  to 
them  the  orders  of  the  Brigadier.  He  praised  them  heartily  for 
their  past  conduct,  but  ended  by  announcing  that,  as  an  evil  spirit 
seemed  to  be  abroad  in  the  Indian  army,  it  had  been  thought  ad- 
visable to  save  them  from  others — and  it  might  be  from  themselves, 
by  taking  from  them — their  arms.  While  he  was  still  speaking  the 
five  hundred  Europeans  fell  back  between  the  guns  which  had 
hitherto  been  concealed  behind  them,  and  left  the  Sepoy  regiments 


i857  THE    HOUR   AND   THE   MAN.  9 

to  look  down  the  twelve  black  throats  of  the  cannon,  which  were 
already  loaded  with  grape,  while  the  gunners  stood  by  with  port- 
fires lighted.  Just  as  he  ceased  to  speak,  the  word  of  command, 
*  Eighty-first,  load  ! '  rang  clearly  forth.  It  was  a  thrilling  moment, 
a  moment  in  which  half  a  lifetime  must  have  seemed  to  pass.  There 
was,  it  is  said,  a  slight  hesitation,  but  the  ringing  of  the  ramrods  as 
the  charges  were  rammed  home,  spoke  eloquently  in  favour  of  obe- 
dience, and  so  some  two  thousand  muskets,  and  some  seven  hun- 
dred sabres  soon  lay  piled  upon  the  ground. 

The  extremity  of  the  peril  was  now  over.  The  Sepoy  garrison 
of  the  fort  which  commands  the  city  of  Lahore  was  relieved  and 
disarmed  at  almost  the  same  moment  by  three  companies  of  the 
same  8ist  Regiment,  and  the  capital  of  the  Punjab,  with  its  hun- 
dred thousand  inhabitants,  its  cantonments,  and  its  civil  station, 
was  safe  from  the  mutineers. 

Nor  was  Montgomery  content  to  secuTe  Lahore  alone.  Before 
the  day  so  big  with  the  destinies  of  the  Punjab — and  if  of  the 
Punjab,  then  of  India — had  come  to  an  end,  a  company  of  the 
same  valiant  regiment,  which,  without  the  firing  of  a  single  gun,  or 
the  shedding  of  a  single  drop  of  blood,  had  disarmed  seven  times 
their  number,  was  speeding  away  in  native  carts,  which  had  been 
hastily  collected,  to  Umritsur.  Close  to  Umritsur  and  command- 
ing it  was  Govindghur,  a  fort  named  after  Govind,  the  famous 
Guru.  Hard  by  was  the  Golden  Temple  and  the  Pool  of  Immor- 
tality. The  whole  place  thus  served  as  a  rallying  point  to  the  Sikh 
nation,  whether  we  regard  them  as  the  conquering  commonwealth 
of  the  Khalsa  or  as  the  enthusiastic  votaries  of  a  reformed  creed. 
Hence  its  supreme  importance.  Govindghur  was  held  by  a  native 
garrison,  but  before  the  next  morning  dawned,  the  English  troops 
had  traversed  the  thirty  intervening  miles,  and  were  safely  en- 
sconced within  its  walls. 

On  the  day  preceding  the  disarmament  at  Lahore  trusty  messen- 
gers had  been  sent  out  by  the  same  ready  hand  and  head  to  Fe- 
rozepore,  which  was  one  of  the  largest  arsenals  in  India  ;  to  Mool- 
tan,  which,  with  its  important  trade  and  the  historic  reputation  of 
its  citadel,  was  guarded  by  only  one  company  of  European  artil- 
lery ;  and  to  the  fort  of  Kangra,  on  the  influence  of  which  among 
the  mountain  tribes  of  the  far  north  I  have  already  had  occasion  to 
dwell.  Thus,  within  forty-eight  hours  of  the  receipt  of  the  news 
from  Delhi,  Lahore  and  Umritsur  had  been  saved,  the  garrisons  of 
Govindghur  and  Ferozepore  strengthened,  Mooltan  and  Kangra 
warned  ! 


lO  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

But  Montgomery's  attention  was  not  confined  to  the  great  towns 
and  arsenals.  Messengers  were  despatched  in  every  direction  to  the 
small  civil  stations  scattered  over  the  country,  bidding  the  officers 
send  in  all  their  treasure  to  the  nearest  military  station  under  the 
escort  of  Punjabi  police,  to  distrust  the  Hindustani  guards,  to  stop 
all  Sepoys'  letters  passing  through  the  Post  Office.  '  Whilst  acting 
vigorously,'  so  he  summed  up  his  admirable  and  spirit-stirring  in- 
structions, '  and  being  alive  to  the  great  importance  of  the  crisis,  I 
would  earnestly  suggest  calmness  and  quietude.  There  should  be 
no  signs  of  alarm  or  excitement.  But  be  prepared  to  act,  and  have 
the  best  information  from  every  source  at  your  disposal.  Sir  John 
Lawrence  being  absent  from  Lahore,  till  he  arrives,  I  should  wish 
that,  every  day  or  two,  a  few  lines  should  be  sent  to  me  informing 
me  of  the  state  of  feeling  in  your  district,  &c.,  &c.  I  have  full  re- 
liance on  your  zeal  and  discretion  in  this  important  crisis.' 

Well  might  Sir  John  Lawrence,  writing  a  few  days  later  to  the  man 
who  had  so  spoken  and  written  and  acted  on  his  behalf,  say,  in  a 
burst  of  genuine  enthusiasm,  which  was  rare  in  him,  except  when  a 
piece  of  extraordinarily  good  work  called  it  forth, '  Your  Lahore  men 
have  done  nobly.  I  should  like  to  embrace  them  ;  Donald,  Rob- 
erts, Mac  (Macpherson),  and  Dick  are,  all  of  them,  piicca  trumps,' 
— one  of  his  very  highest  terms  of  praise.  And,  in  more  dignified 
phrases,  he  wrote  officially,  '  Mr.  Montgomery,  neglecting  no  pre- 
caution, admits  of  no  alarm,  and  inspires  all  with  confidence  and 
zeal.  .  .  .  Indeed,'  he  continues,  *  all  officers,  civil  and  military,  are 
displaying  that  calmness  and  energy  which,  under  such  circum- 
stances, might  be  expected  from  English  gentlemen,  and  are  a 
sufficient  guarantee  that  all  that  is  practicable  will  be  effected  by 
them.' 

And  how  meanwhile  was  it  faring  with  Sir  John  Lawrence  him- 
self. The  first  telegram,  containing  the  news  of  the  outbreak  at 
Meerut,  reached  him  early  on  the  morning  of  Tuesday,  the  12th, 
while  he  was  still  in  bed.  He  had  been  suffering  terribly  from 
neuralgia  for  the  last  two  months,  and  on  the  previous  evening  the 
doctor  had  rubbed  his  temples  with  aconite  in  order  to  relieve  the 
intensity  of  the  pain.  '  It  is  a  deadly  poison,'  says  John  Lawrence, 
writing  to  Edwardes  on  the  13th,  'and  in  the  night  it  worked  into 
my  eye  and  I  was  nearly  blinded.'  Such  was  his  condition  when 
the  news  came.  But  Lady  Lawrence  well  remembers  how,  worn 
out  with  pain  and  sleeplessness  as  he  Avas,  he  at  once  left  his  bed, 
and  sent  off  telegrams  and  letters  in  every  direction.  After  break- 
fast Edward  Thornton,  the  Commissioner  of  the  Division  looked 


r857  THE   HOUR    AND    THE   MAN.  II 

in,  and  while  he  was  conversing  with  his  chief,  and  while  Lady 
Lawrence  and  her  niece  were  in  the  act  of  pouring  a  lotion  into  the 
injured  eye — little  wonder  is  it  that  the  most  trivial  circumstances 
of  such  an  epoch-making  moment  impressed  themselves  indelibly 
on  the  minds  of  those  who  were  present — the  second  and  more 
fateful  telegram,  containing  the  news  of  the  capture  of  Delhi  and  the 
murder  of  the  Europeans,  was  brought  in  and  read  aloud.  The 
conversation  was  cut  short.  It  was  time  for  thought  and  not  for 
words.  For  the  telegram,  rightly  apprehended,  brought  the  news 
that  a  local  outbreak  of  discontented  Sepoys,  which  might  have 
been  stamped  out  by  vigorous  measures  on  the  part  of  General 
Hewett  who  commanded  the  Brigade  at  Meerut,  had,  by  his  fatal 
vacillation,  been  transferred  to  Delhi  and  had  been  transformed 
into  a  vast  political  revolution,  which  aimed  at  nothing  less  than  the 
empire  of  India.  No  record  has  reached  my  hands  of  what  John 
Lawrence  thought,  or  said,  or  wrote  on  the  rest  of  that  eventful  day. 
But  the  upshot  of  it  all  may  be  seen  in  the  masterly  batch  of  letters, 
extraordinary  alike  in  their  quality  and  in  their  quantity,  which  he 
wrote,  on  the  following  day,  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  at  Simla, 
to  the  Commissioner  at  Peshawur,  to  the  Brigadier-General  at 
Peshawur,  to  the  Brigadier  in  command  of  the  Frontier  force,  and 
to  the  Governor-General.  They  lie  before  me  in  one  of  his  big  folio 
volumes,  and  show  that,  without  having  held  personal  communica- 
tion with  anyone,  he  was  already  master  of  the  situation. 

His  first  duty  was  to  secure  the  safety  of  his  own  province  ;  but 
the  immediate  steps  towards  that  end  were  already  being  taken  un- 
known to  him,  by  Montgomery  at  Lahore,  and,  with  his  full  knowl- 
edge and  consent,  by  Edwardes  and  Nicholson  at  Peshawur.  His 
second  duty,  and  hardly  second  in  his  own  mind,  as  his  telegrams 
and  letters  show,  was  to  make  his  province  the  means  of  retaking 
Delhi.  The  tendency  of  official  life — if  a  man  be  not  a  really  great 
man — is  to  narrow  the  intellect,  to  make  him  take  an  official  view 
of  everything,  to  enslave  him  to  the  maxims  or  traditions  of  some 
petty  clique  or  some  strong-minded  chief.  In  India  this  is,  per- 
haps, less  the  case  than  in  some  countries  which  are  nearer  home. 
There,  if  anywhere,  it  may  be  truly  said  that  *  none  are  for  a  party 
and  all  are  for  the  state,'  but  even  in  India  the  tendency  may  be 
observed.  '  He  sat  at  the  feet  of  so-and-so,'  is  a  phrase  which  we 
read  till  we  are  tired  of  it,  in  the  writings  of  Anglo-Indian  historians 
and  essayists.  But  it  is  the  confession  of  a  fact.  It  is,  perhaps,  in- 
evitable that  it  should  be  so.  Things  are  done  on  so  vast  a  scale 
in  India,  the  sphere  of  even  a  District-officer  is  so  wide,  the  work 


12  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

to  be  done  Is  so  far  beyond  his  utmost  energies,  he  has  so  many 
thousands  or  tens  of  thousands  of  dependents  and  so  very  few 
equals  or  superiors,  that  it  is  httle  to  be  wondered  at  if  his  District 
forms  his  world — a  good-sized  world,  it  is  true — but  still  his  world. 
And  small  wonder  would  it  have  been,  if  John  Lawrence,  responsible 
as  he  was  for  the  safety  of  so  vast,  so  warlike,  and  so  inflammable 
a  province  as  the  Punjab,  had  thought  that  he  would  be  doing  his 
duty  right  well  if  he  held  it  firmly  within  his  grip,  kept  within  bounds 
the  36,000  mutinous  Sepoys  it  contained,  and  opposing  an  impreg- 
nable barrier  to  the  further  spread  of  revolt  from  the  side  of  Delhi, 
or  to  invasion  from  the  side  of  Afghanistan,  preserved  a  foothold 
in  his  own  part  of  India  for  English  rule,  till  reinforcements  were 
sent  out  from  England  to  recover  the  capital  of  the  Moguls. 

But  Sir  John  Lawrence,  though  he  had  been  brought  up  among 
Indian  ofhcials,  and  was  one  of  the  best  and  ablest  of  them  him- 
self, had  not  got  a  merely  official  mind.  His  spirit  was  imperial, 
not  provincial.  He  was  able  to  look  beyond  the  Punjab,  to  the 
vast  empire  of  which  it  formed  the  youngest  part,  and  instead  of 
sacrificing  India  to  save  his  province,  he  would  have  been  prepared, 
under  certain  circumstances,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  to  sacrifice 
his  province  in  whole  or  in  part,  if  haply  he  might  save  the  empire. 
So  while  he  sent  off  by  letter  and  by  telegram  his  warm  approval 
of  the  proposals  made  by  the  knot  of  good  men  and  true  at  Pesha- 
wur,  to  ensure  the  safety  of  the  Punjab,  and  was  elaborating  and 
suggesting  many  others  of  his  own,  he  never,  for  an  instant,  lost 
sight  of  the  greater  object  which  lay  beyond,  and  which  was,  hence- 
fonvard,  for  four  long  months  to  fill  so  much  of  his  mental  horizon. 

A  selection  from  the  stirring  telegrams  and  letters  which  he 
wrote  on  the  first  of  these  hundred  and  twenty  days  must  perforce 
be  made ;  and  those  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  and  Governor- 
General  will,  perhaps,  best  show  how  he  had  already  girded  him- 
self for  the  struggle  ;  how,  seeing  where  the  real  point  of  danger 
lay,  he  was  already  able  to  predict  what  course — if  there  were  any 
delay  or  vacillation  on  the  part  of  the  authorities — the  Mutiny 
would  surely  take  ;  and  how,  in  futherance  of  his  object,  he  was 
prepared  to  brush  out  of  his  way  all  the  cobwebs  of  ofiicialism,  of 
etiquette,  and  of  routine.  It  will  be  remembered  that  as  Chief 
Commissioner  of  the  Punjab  he  had  no  technical  or  legal  right  to 
make  any  suggestions  at  all  to  the  Commander-in-Chief.  The 
Commander-in-Chief  was  subject  indeed  to  the  civil  power,  but  not 
to  the  power  of  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Punjab  ;  and  had 
General  Anson  not  been  able  to  see  that  this  was  no  time  to  stand 


i857  THE    HOUR    AND    THE   MAN.  13 

on  ceremony,  he  might  well  have  been  disposed  to  tell  '  the  cobbler 
not  to  go  beyond  his  last.'  It  was  almost  as  creditable  to  the  fa- 
vourite of  the  Horse  Guards,  that  he  was  able  to  recognise  the 
stern  integrity  of  purpose  and  the  statesmanlike  insight  which  un- 
derlay the  vehement  expostulations  brought  to  him  hour  after  hour, 
or  post  after  post,  from  Sir  John  Lawrence,  as  it  was  to  Sir  John 
Lawrence  that  he  was  able,  with  a  volcano  beneath  his  feet,  to 
trouble  himself  about  the  more  momentous  possibilities  which  lay 
beyond. 

Here  is  his  first  telegram,  which,  though  it  was  addressed  to 
Douglas  Forsyth,  the  Deputy  Commissioner  at  Umballa,  was  in- 
tended for  immediate  transmission  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  : — 

May  13. 
I  think  that  all  the  European  regiments  in  the  hills  and  the  Goorkha 
regiment  at  Jutogh  should  at  once  be  brought  down  to  Umballa,  and 
arrangements  be  made  for  securing  that  cantonment.  In  the  meantime, 
if  the  Meerut  force  has  not  disarmed  or  destroyed  the  mutineers  at  that 
place,  peremptory  orders  from  ihe  Commander-in-Chief  should  go  down  to 
do  so.  A  large  portion  of  the  European  force  from  Meerut,  with  such 
native  troops  as  can  be  trusted,  should  then  march  on  Delhi,  and  a 
picked  brigade  from  Umballa  also  go  down,  by  forced  marches,  by  Kur- 
nal  to  Delhi,  so  that  our  troops  can  operate  simultaneously  from  both 
sides  of  the  Jumna.  The  city  of  Delhi  and  the  magazine  should  be  re- 
covered at  once.  Get  the  Maharaja  of  Puttiala  to  send  one  regiment  to 
Thaneysur,  and  another  to  Loodiana. 

His  first  letter  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  ran  as  follows  : 

Rawul  Pindi  :  May  13,  1857. 

My  dear  Sir, — I  enclose  a  copy  of  a  telegraphic  message  which  I  have 
just  sent  to  Mr.  Forsyth,  the  Deputy. Commissioner  at  Umballa.  I  pre- 
sume that  the  European  force  at  Meerut  has,  by  this  time,  acted  against 
its  own  mutineers,  but  if  it  has  not  done  so,  peremptory  orders  should,  I 
think,  be  sent  down  by  express  to  this  effect.  There  are  probably  1,800 
Europeans  of  the  different  arms,  who  should  be  able  to  do  this  at  once. 

The  next  step  will  be  to  recover  Delhi  and  its  magazine;  the  latter  is 
the  arsenal  for  all  Upper  India.  A  picked  force  moving  from  Meerut 
and  Umballa,  and  operating  simultaneously  from  both  sides  of  the  Jumna, 
if  they  acted  vigorously  could  not  fail  to  recover  Delhi.  Unless  this  be 
done  the  insurrection  will  assuredly  spread,  and  our  European  troops 
become  isolated,  and,  perhaps,  be  gradually  destroyed  in  detail. 

I  calculate  that  the  European  regiments  of  infantry  and  cavalry,  after 
settling  affairs  at  Umballa,  and  collecting  everything  worth  caring  for, 
might  safely  march  two-thirds  of  their  numbers   towards  Delhi.     This 


14  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

place  is  ten  moderate  marches  distant ;  the  troops  could  do  it  in  six  or 
seven.  By  decisive  measures  at  once  we  should  crush  the  mutineers, 
and  g-ive  support  to  the  well-affected  or  timid.  Time,  in  such  matters, 
seems  to  be  everything. 

For  the  country  this  side  the  Sutlej,  up  to  the  Khyber,  I  make  the  fol- 
lowing proposal.  Collect  at  this  place,  and  subsequently  march  on  to 
Jhelum,  the  following  Movable  Column  :  two  European  regiments  of  in- 
fantry, viz.  H.M.'s  27th  from  Nousherah,  and  six  picked  companies  of 
the  24th  from  this  place.  Add  to  these  the  Irregular  Cavalry  from 
Shumshabad,  and  two  Punjab  corps  of  Infantry  ;  this  force  to  be  com- 
manded by  a  selected  officer,  say  Brigadier  Sydney  Cotton,  to  move  on 
any  point  and  crush  rebellion  and  mutiny.  The  frontier  will  be  quite 
safe,  Sealkote,  Lahore,  Ferozepore,  and  Jullundur  can  hold  their  own. 
The  places  where  danger  is  to  be  apprehended  are  where  there  is  no 
European  force,  such  as  Jhelum,  Hoshiarpore,  Mooltan,  and  Phillour. 
The  Movable  Column,  by  its  very  name,  would  do  much  good,  and  by 
rapidly  advancing  on  any  point  where  danger  was  to  be  apprehended 
would  crush  mutiny  and  rebellion. 

Everything  now  depends  on  energy  and  resolution.  A  week  or  two 
hence  it  may  be  too  late.  If  your  Excellency  w-ill  sanction  these  arrange- 
ments. Brigadier  Sydney  Cotton  and  I  will  arrange  all  the  details.  I  will 
send  him  a  copy  of  this  letter,  and  request  he  will  have  H.M.'s  27th  Regi- 
ment ready  to  move  at  an  hour's  notice.  Peshawur,  with  two  European 
regiments,  will  be  quite  safe  ;  and  as  it  is  the  native  Regular  army  we  have 
to  guard  against,  I  consider  that  that  portion  of  it  which  is  on  the  fron- 
tier, from  its  isolation  and  position  in  a  strange  country,  is  less  danger- 
ous than  elsew^here.  The  people  of  the  country  will,  I  have  no  doubt, 
remain  quiet  so  long  as  the  native  army  keep  quiet,  and  even  afterwards, 
if  we  act  vigorously  and  decisively.  No  delay  on  account  of  the  season 
of  the  year,  or  for  any  other  reason,  should  be  allowed  to  weigh 
with  us. 

I  make  no  apology  for  writing  to  your  Excellency  plainly  and  fully.  I 
consider  this  to  be  the  greatest  crisis  which  has  ever  occurred  in  India. 
Our  European  force  is  so  small  that,  unless  effectively  handled  in  the 
outset,  and  brought  to  bear,  it  will  prove  unequal  to  the  emergency. 
But  with  vigour  and  promptitude,  under  the  blessing  of  God,  it  will  be 
irresistible. 

Yours  very  faithfully, 

John  Lawrence. 

H.E.  General  the  Hon.  George  Anson. 

P.  S. — Should  you  not  consider  that  Brigadier  S.  Cotton  can  be  spared, 
any  able  officer  you  like  might  command  the  Movable  Force.  I  would 
name  Brigadier  Chamberlain,   but  his  army  rank  is  a  difficulty. 

The  telegram  sent  ofi  on  the  same  day  to  Edmondstone  for  Lord 
Canning,  is  as  characteristic  as  that  to  Forsyth  for  General  Anson. 


i857  THE    HOUR    AND   THE    MAN.  15 

All  safe  as  yet  in  the  Punjab,  but  the  aspect  of  affairs  most  threat- 
ening'. The  whole  native  Regular  army  are  ready  to  break  out,  and 
unless  a  blow  be  soon  struck,  the  Irregulars,  as  a  body,  will  follow 
their  example. 

Send  for  our  troops  from  Persia.  Intercept  the  force  now  on  its  way 
to  China,  and  bring  it  to  Calcutta.  Every  European  soldier  will  be  re- 
quired to  save  the  country  if  the  whole  of  the  native  troops  turn  against 
us.  This  is  the  opinion  of  all  leading  minds  here.  Every  precaution 
which  foresight  can  dictate  is  being  taken  to  hold  our  own,  independent 
of  the  natives. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  enclosed  a  copy  of  his  letter  to  General 
Anson  in  one  of  his  own  to  the  rLiovernor-General,  and  from  this 
last  I  give  the  following  extract  : — 

Rawul  Pindi :  May  15,  1857. 
My  Lord,  .  .  .  We  have  mutiny  at  Meerut,  mutiny  and  massa- 
cre at  Delhi,  and  all  but  mutiny  at  Umballa.  What  the  cause  of  all  this 
is,  it  is  difficult  to  divine.  I  hear  that  the  cartridge  question  was  the 
commencement  of  the  feeling,  and  that  now  the  Sepoys  think  the  Gov- 
ernment mean  to  deprive  them  of  their  bread,  or,  in  other  words,  to  get 
rid  of  them.  I  am  told  that  the  circulation  of  the  chupatty  some  months 
ago  was  connected  with  this  feeling.  The  '  chupatty  '  was  the  symbol 
of  their  food,  and  its  circulation  was  to  say  that  they  should  hold  together 
or  they  would  lose  it  all.  Be  this  as  it  may — that  the  worst  feeling  pre- 
vails generally  in  the  native  army  can  admit  of  no  doubt.  Our  Euro- 
pean force  in  India  is  so  small,  that  it  may  gradually  be  worn  down  and 
destroyed.  It  is  of  the  highest  importance,  therefore,  that  we  should  in- 
crease our  Irregular  troops  as  soon  as  possible.  By  my  plan,  without 
unduly  adding  to  the  number  of  native  troops,  we  shall  be  strengthening 
ourselves  in  this  class  of  soldiers,  while  the  promotion  it  will  give  will 
prove  highly  popular.  These  extra  companies  can  hereafter  form  the 
nucleus  of  new  regiments. 

I  myself  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  Native  Artillery  and  Irregular 
Cavalry  will  prove  faithful  as  a  body.  They  do  not  come  from  Oude 
and  its  vicinity,  are  mostly  Mohammedan,  and  have  few  sympathies  with 
the  Regulars.  But,  in  the  event  of  an  emergency,  I  should  like  to  have 
power  to  raise  as  far  as  one  thousand  horse.  I  will  not  do  this,  of 
course,  unless  absolutely  necessary. 

The  proposal  for  increasing  the  number  of  Irregular  troops,  to 
wdiich  Sir  John  Lawrence  here  alludes,  had  already  been  made  by 
telegraph.  It  was  to  the  effect  that  three  companies  of  fifty  men 
each  should  be  added  to  each  Punjab  regiment,  to  each  Sikh  corps, 
and  to  each  police  battalion — the  whole  addition  amounting  to 
4,320  men.     By  this  bold  and  vigorous  action  at  the  very  begin- 


l6  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

ning  of  the  revolt,  he  showed  that  he  already  realised  the  extent  to 
which  it  was  likely  to  spread,  and  that  he  had  already  made  up  his 
mind  to  trust  his  subjects  and  to  arm  them,  under  proper  con- 
ditions, against  the  Sepoys.  On  the  same  day  he  recommended 
that  all  leave  be  stopped,  and  that  all  officers  in  Cashmere  should 
be  recalled.  He  ordered  all  Sepoys'  letters  passing  through  the 
post  to  be  opened,  and,  if  their  contents  were  suspicious,  detained. 
He  ordered  local  levies  to  be  everywhere  raised  which  were  to 
take  charge  of  out-stations  and  relieve  the  suspected  Native  In- 
fantry guards.  He  begged  Brigadier  Campbell  at  Rawul  Pindi  to 
attempt,  by  full  explanations  on  the  subject  of  the  cartridges,  to 
disabuse  the  minds  of  his  men  of  the  fancies  which  had  gathered 
round  them.  He  suggested  to  Edwardes,  to  Cotton  and  to  Cham- 
berlain, the  component  parts  of  the  Movable  Column  and  its  early 
movements.  In  particular  he  ordered  the  Guides  to  come  from 
Hoti  Murdan  to  Noushera,  and  be  ready  to  start  for  Rawul 
Pindi  at  an  hour's  notice.  '  It  is  want  of  action,'  he  wrote  to 
Edwardes,  *  rather  than  the  want  of  means,  which  may  prove 
disastrous  to  us  ;  '  and  already,  by  this  first  day's  work,  he  had 
given  pretty  good  reason  to  think  that,  so  far  as  the  Punjab  and 
its  officers  were  concerned,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  would  be 
wanting. 

Edwardes  and  Nicholson  were,  each  of  them,  anxious  to  have 
the  command  of  the  Mooltani  Horse  or  to  accompany  the  Mov- 
able Column,  the  formation  of  which  they  had  been  the  first  to 
suggest.  But  this  proposal  the  Chief  Commissioner  thought  proper 
to  decline. 

I  am  much  obliged  to  you  and  Nicholson  for  the  offer  of  your  serv- 
ices, and  there  are  no  two  men  whose  services  would  be  more  valuable. 
But  I  do  not  think  that  you  could  possibly  be  better  placed  than  where 
you  now  are,  particularly  if  Sydney  Cotton  is  moved.  The  general  will 
require  all  your  help. 

There  was  true  wisdom  in  this.  The  hour  might  come,  if  the 
Mutiny  ran  its  course,  when  Nicholson  would  be  even  more  useful 
in  the  interior  of  the  Punjab  or  at  Delhi  than  at  Peshawur.  But  so 
long  as  there  were  in  the  Peshawur  valley  some  6,000  mutinously 
disposed  native  troops  with  arms  in  their  hands,  and  with  less  than 
3,000  Europeans  to  watch  and  to  overawe  them  ;  so  long  as  the 
Mohmunds,  the  Afridis,  the  Eusofzyes  and  a  dozen  other  semi- 
hostile  bordering  tribes  had  not  declared  themselves  ;  and  so  long 
again  as  behind  them,  although  happily  beyond  their  mountains, 


i857  THE    HOUR    AND    THE    MAN.  17 

lay  the  old  Afghan  Ameer  whom,  for  purposes  of  our  own,  we  had 
deprived  temporarily  of  his  crown,  and  permanently  of  his  pet 
province,  and  whom  we  had  only  half  conciliated  by  our  two 
recent  treaties,  John  Lawrence  felt  that  Peshawur  was  the  post  of 
danger,  and  that  at  the  post  of  danger  there  was  need  of  the  ser- 
vices of  the  man  whose  presence  on  the  frontier,  in  view  of  his 
resolute  will  and  his  commanding  character,  he  had  long  since  de- 
clared to  be  worth  the  wing  of  a  regiment. 

And  there  was  greater  wisdom  still  in  the  answer  which  Sir  John 
Lawrence  gave  a  few  days  later  to  the  new  shape  which  the  pro- 
posal of  the  Peshawur  authorities  took,  that  Nicholson,  if  he  was 
not  to  be  in  command  of  the  Mooltani  Horse,  or  to  have  any  other 
important  military  post,  might  at  any  rate  accompany  the  Column, 
as  its  chief  political  officer.  John  Lawrence  saw  instinctively,  that 
such  an  arrangement  would  be  unfair  to  his  subordinates,  whom  he 
had  selected  with  so  much  care,  and  had  then  placed  in  the  spots 
best  suited  to  them.  It  would  be  undesirable  to  supersede  their 
local  experience  and  to  lessen  their  sense  of  responsibility  by  at- 
taching any  such  political  officer  to  the  Column.  It  was  the  right, 
as  it  was  the  duty  and  the  pride,  of  each  Punjab  officer  to  be  re- 
sponsible for  his  own  district.  More  than  this  he  would  not  ask. 
With  less  he  could  not  be  content. 

Another  proposal  made  by  the  Council  at  Peshawur  that  General 
Reed,  who  was  the  senior  military  officer  in  the  Punjab,  should 
move  down  to  Rawul  Pindi,  was  warmly  approved  by  Sir  John  Law- 
rence. The  chief  civil  and  military  authorities  in  the  province 
would  thus  be  found  in  the  same  place,  and,  as  those  who  made  the 
proposal  foresaw,  pretty  much  in  the  same  hands.  General  Reed 
was  not  a  man  marked  out  by  nature  to  take  the  lead  in  troublous 
times,  nor  was  he  a  man  to  stand  unnecessarily  upon  his  dignity. 
On  the  contrary,  he  was  wise  enough  and  patriotic  enough  to  allow 
himself  to  be  guided  by  the  clearer  head  and  stronger  will  with 
which,  for  the  time  being,  he  was  brought  into  contact.  He  went 
down  on  the  i6th  to  Rawul  Pindi  with  Chamberlain,  and,  on  the 
evening  of  the  same  day,  Edwardes  was  summoned  by  the  Chief 
Commissioner  to  join  the  party.  And  so,  during  the  next  few  days 
there  might  have  been  seen  sitting,  in  one  of  the  three  rooms  on  the 
ground  floor  of  John  Lawrence's  small  house  in  the  cantonments,  a 
Council  of  War,  composed  of  Reed,  Edwardes,  and  Chamberlain, 
while,  in  the  adjoining  room,  sat  and  worked,  as  few  men  have  ever 
worked,  the  Chief  Commissioner,  with  James  his  '  acting '  private 
secretary.     It  was  from  this  last  room  that  the  spirit-stirring  tele- 

VOL.  II.— 2 


i8  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

grams  or  letters,  which  lie  before  me  in  such  rich  abundance,  passed 
forth  daily  or  hourly  to  Nicholson  and  Cotton  at  Peshawur,  to 
Montgomery  and  Macpherson  at  Lahore,  to  General  Anson  at  Um- 
balla,  to  Bartle  Frere  in  Scinde,  to  Lord  Elphinstone  at  Bombay,  to 
Lord  Canning  at  Calcutta,  and  to  Mangles,  the  Chairman  of  the 
Court  of  Directors,  at  home. 

I  quote  by  preference  here  one  of  the  last.  For  it  is  characteristic 
of  John  Lawrence's  intellect  and  of  his  grasp  of  the  situation,  that 
he  was  able  to  write  to  the  then  unknown  Chairman  of  the  Direc- 
tors, pointing  out,  not  so  much  the  danger  to  his  own  province,  as 
to  the  empire  at  large,  putting  his  finger  on  the  chief  blots  of  our 
military  system  :  and  even  now,  in  'the  greatest  crisis,'  as  he  calls 
it,  which  had  ever  occurred  in  India,  suggesting  the  remedy. 

Rawul  Pindi  :  May  15,  1857. 

My  dear  Sir, — I  make  no  apology  for  writing  to  you  at  such  a  crisis. 
I  enclose  a  copy  of  a  note  I  have  addressed  to  Lord  Elphinstone.  So  far 
as  we  can  yet  learn  the  Irregular  troops  will  prove  faithful ;  but  the  dis- 
affection in  the  native  Regular  army  seems  general,  and,  I  may  add  uni- 
versal. By  God's  help  we  are  strong  enough  in  the  Punjab  to  hold  our 
own.  But  the  state  of  Bengal  and  the  Upper  Provinces  seems  most  crit- 
ical. Between  Calcutta  and  Agra  there  cannot  be  more  than  five  or  six 
thousand  European  soldiers,  and  these  are  scattered  about  the  country. 
Even  at  Meerut,  where  there  are  some  eighteen  hundred  European  sol- 
diers of  all  arms,  we  hear  that  they  have  not  acted  on  the  offensive,  but 
apprehend  attack. 

The  present  emeiites  have  been  excited,  apparently,  by  the  new  car- 
tridges. The  Sepoys  have  got  an  idea  into  their  heads  that  the  paper  is 
dipped  in  cow  fat,  and  there  is  no  getting  it  out  of  them.  They  seem  to 
have  made  up  their  minds  that  their  religion  is  in  danger.  It  is  vain  to 
talk  and  to  reason  with  them.  Corps  which  have  not  committed  them- 
selves protest  that  they  are  loyal,  until  the  moment  when  they  break  out. 
Officers  seem  to  think  that  some  other  cause  must  exist,  but  this  I  doubt. 
Men  who  are  ignorant  and  prejudiced,  when  once  they  have  taken  up 
an  idea  do  not  easily  give  it  up.  However,  it  is  very  probable  that  cun- 
ning and  designing  men  have  fanned  the  flame.  The  e'meute  among  the 
3d  Cavalry,  who  are  nearly  all  Mohammedans,  is  most  unaccountable, 
and  I  should  suppose  that  some  mismanagement  has  given  rise  to  an  ill 
feeling  amongst  them — which  not  being  promptly  allayed — the  men  have 
gone  with  tlie  Regular  native  infantry. 

What  makes  the  state  of  affairs  so  serious  is  that  nearly  all  the  latter 
class  come  from  Oude  and  its  vicinity,  and  the  majority  are  Brahmins. 
Thus  they  have  the  same  prejudices  and  feelings,  and  can  combine  with 
a  perfect  confidence  in  one  another.  The  European  officers  of  the  native 
Regulars  do  not  mix  sufficiently  with  their  men,  are  unable  to  fathom 


i857  THE    HOUR    AND   THE    MAN.  I9 

their  real  sentiments,  and  do  not  sympathise  sufficiently  with  them  in 
every-day  life. 

The  Irregulars  have  no  common  feeling  with  the  Regulars,  and  being 
composed  of  mixed  races,  and  commanded  by  officers  whose  qualities 
have  been  called  forth  by  their  position,  are  much  more  reliable.  Still 
they  are  mercenaries,  and  bad  example  is  catching. 

This  seems  to  me  the  greatest  crisis  which  has  as  yet  occurred  in  India  ; 
and  it  will  require  great  good  management  to  weather  the  storm.  I 
most  strongly  urge  that  a  large  body  of  European  infantry  be  despatched 
to  India  as  soon  as  may  be  possible.  After  what  has  occurred,  it  would 
be  the  extreme  of  fatuity  not  to  strengthen  ourselves  in  this  way.  Some- 
thing of  this  kind  seemed  necessary  to  show  the  unsoundness  of  the 
present  military  system.  Nothing  short  of  it  would,  I  believe,  convince 
some  people,  or  counteract  the  influence  of  class  interests.  From  a 
false  esprit  de  corps  officers  will  not,  in  ordinary  times,  admit  that 
anything  is  wrong.  The  whole  Regular  native  army  should  be  reor- 
ganised and  remodelled.  Native  troops  should  have  few  officers. 
But  these  should  be  well  selected,  and  readily  removable  if  they 
prove  a  failure.  Many  officers  with  native  troops  do  harm,  for  they 
have  nothing  to  do,  try  to  get  away,  and  failing  to  do  so,  become 
discontented.  All  the  native  army  should  be  on  the  Irregular  system, 
and  the  saving  which  would  be  effected  would  cover  all  the  expense 
of  a  sufficient  addition  to  the  European  force. 

But,  amidst  all  his  pressing  anxieties,  the  Chief  Commissioner's 
sense  of  humour  never  deserted  him,  nor  was  the  conversation  con- 
fined, even  in  these  first  days,  to  the  Mutiny  alone.  One  who  was 
present  still  remembers  the  animation  with  which  in  the  verandah 
outside  his  house,  in  the  cool  of  the  evening,  so  remote  a  subject  as 
Ruskin's  marriage  was  discussed,  Edwardes,  the  most  literary  of  the 
party,  naturally  taking  the  lead  in  the  conversation  ;  while  another 
recollects  how  the  Chief  Commissioner  himself,  in  one  of  his  early 
morning  rides  on  a  breezy  day,  meeting  a  native  who  was  employed 
in  the  Telegraph  Department,  asked  him,  with  a  serious  face,  what 
was  the  cause  of  the  noise  he  heard  in  the  wires  ?  The  man  replied 
that  he  did  not  know.  '  What ! '  said  the  Chief  Commissioner,  '  you 
in  the  Department  and  not  know  as  much  as  that  ? '  The  man, 
little  thinking  that  the  Sahib  was  having  a  joke  at  his  expense,  and, 
perhaps,  imagining  that  the  sound  might  have  more  to  do  with  the 
Mutiny  than  he  was  likely  at  that  early  stage  to  know,  replied  : 
'  Please,  my  lord,  I  have  only  been  a  short  time  in  the  office  ;  but  I 
shall  soon  know  all  about  it.'  So  again,  when  Barnes,  Commissioner 
of  the  Cis-Sutlej  States,  who  had  been  doing  excellent  work  in 
bringing  the  great  protected  chiefs  of  his  division  to  stand  by  us  in 


20  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

our  hour  of  need,  telegraphed  to  the  Chief  Commissioner,  that 
General  Anson  was  talking  of  entrenching  himself  at  Umballa  in- 
stead of  marching  on  Delhi,  the  answer  flashed  back,  by  the  leave 
or  the  suggestion  of  the  Chief  Commissioner,  is  said  to  have  been, 
'Clubs,  not  spades,  are  trumps  ;  when  in  doubt,  take  the  trick.'  It 
was  an  answer  which  the  Commander-in-Chief,  who  had  published  a 
standard  work  on  whist,  would  quite  appreciate,  and  it  would  help, 
moreover,  to  carry  off  those  more  serious  and  drastic  messages,  in 
which  John  Lawrence,  clinging  to  his  great  purpose,  kept  urging, 
at  all  hazards,  an  immediate  advance  on  Delhi. 

And  what  was  happening  at  Head-quarters  meanwhile  ?  The 
news  had  reached  Umballa  on  the  nth,  and  a  son  of  General  Bar- 
nard had  been  despatched  with  it  post-haste  to  Simla.  He  reached 
his  destination  on  the  12th,  and  had  the  Commander-in-Chief  been 
able  to  realise  its  vast  importance,  that  night,  we  may  feel  sure, 
would  have  seen  him  far  down  the  road  to  Umballa  in  front  of  his 
troops  ;  and,  once  there,  he  would  have  been  straining  every  nerve 
in  that  great  city,  the  military  and  civil  centre  of  the  district,  for  an 
immediate  advance  towards  Delhi.  As  it  was,  he  arrived  only  on 
the  morning  of  the  15  th,  and  then,  if  not  before,  he  must  have  re- 
ceived the  stirring  letter  from  the  Chief  Commissioner  which  I  have 
already  quoted.  A  second  followed  hard  upon  it  urging  him  to 
make  one  more  effort  to  recall  the  Sepoys  to  their  duty  by  the  issue 
of  a  new  order,  abolishing  not  only  the  new  cartridges,  but  all  new 
cartridges  altogether. 

It  is  perfectly  useless  our  saying-  that  the  Sepoys  should  trust  in.  our 
word  that  nothing  objectionable  is  used  in  making  up  these  cartridges. 
They  will  not  believe  it.  They  feel  that  their  religion  is  in  danger,  and 
are  ready  to  resist  and  even  break  out.  The  very  precautions  which 
are  taken  by  us  to  guard  against  the  danger  add  to  their  alarm.  .  .  . 
There  seems  to  be  nothing  for  it  but  to  give  way  in  this  matter  for  the 
present  at  any  rate,  to  be  warned  by  what  has  occurred,  to  take  measures 
to  add  to  our  European  force  in  India,  and  to  re-organise  our  native 
system. 

I  consider  it  my  duty  to  write  to  your  Excellency  without  reserve. 
The  communications  with  Calcutta  are  said  to  be  cut  off,  and,  at  any 
rate,  time  does  not  admit  of  a  reference  to  the  Governor-General.  Our 
policy  is  to  act  at  once,  to  recall  the  disloyal  to  a  sense  of  duty,  to  assure 
the  wavering,  and  to  strike  with  effect  against  those  in  revolt. 

The  suggestion  as  regards  the  cartridges  was  at  once  complied 
with.  But  it  was  too  late.  It  is  difficult  to  say  what  might  not  have 
been  the  result  of  such  a  proclamation,  had  it  been  issued  by  Gen- 


i857  THE    HOUR    AND   THE    MAN.  21 

eral  Anson  when  he  was  on  his  way  to  Simla  in  April,  amidst  un- 
mistakeable  signs  of  rising  mutiny,  but  before  a  drop  of  blood  had 
been  shed. 

Three  days  later,  foreseeing  the  objections  to  a  '  forward  policy,' 
which,  according  to  approved  precedents,  would  be  urged  upon  the 
Commander-in-Chief  by  his  advisers  at  Umballa,  John  Lawrence 
wrote  again,  hoping  to  minimise  their  effect,  and  he  was  able  to 
make  his  advice  more  palatable,  by  the  good  news  that  the  Guides 
were  already  on  their  march  for  Delhi,  and  that  the  Movable  Column 
for  the  Punjab  was  not  merely  forming,  but  was  already,  in  a  great 
measure,  formed. 

Rawul  Pindi:  May  19,  1857. 

My  dear  Sir, — The  Guides  go  from  this  to-morrow,  and  expect  to  be 
at  Lahore  on  the  25th,  and  will  march  thence  z//(J  Ferozepore  to  Kurnal. 
The  Movable  Column  will  be  at  Wuzeerabad  on  the  25th,  and  be  there 
joined  by  H.M.'s  52nd,  the  Artillery,  and  one  N.  I.,  all  from  Seal- 
kote. 

I  do  sincerely  hope  tliat  you  will  be  able  to  disengage  the  Meerut  force 
by  an  early  date,  so  as  to  enable  it  to  act.  Entrenched  at  Meerut,  it 
may  be  safe  for  a  time,  but  can  do  no  good,  and  the  people  of  the  coun- 
try will  become  demoralised,  and,  eventually,  food  will  fail.  Free  the 
Meerut  force,  which  has  allowed  itself  to  be  paralysed,  scour  the  country, 
disarm  the  native  troops  who  have  mutinied,  or  who  are  known  to  be 
faithless  ;  and  then  act  according  to  circumstances.  If  Agra  and  the 
North-West  are  in  danger,  I  would  say  move  down  from  place  to  place, 
uniting  with  the  European  troops,  and  destroying  the  enemy.  We  shall 
be  all  safe  this  side  of  the  Sutlej,  and  be  able  to  help  you  with  native 
troops,  like  the  Guides  and  others. 

If  you  leave  one  native  Regular  corps  at  Umballa,  with  a  proper  pro- 
portion of  Europeans,  and  all  your  ladies,  European  women  and  treasure 
collected  together,  and  take  on  the  other  native  corps,  all  will  go  well. 
What  we  should  avoid  is  isolation,  and  the  co/nmattders  of  stations 
each  looking  to  his  own  charge  and  not  to  the  general  weal.  Many 
will,  I  fear,  counsel  delay  and  caution,  but  such  a  policy  must  prove 
ruinous.  In  marching  the  Europeans.  I  would,  take  as  many  elephants 
and  other  animals  as  possible,  to  carry  the  weary  and  footsore.  Between 
Meerut  and  Calcutta  we  have  but  five  regiments  of  Europeans,  scattered 
over  the  country  at  wide  intervals.  What  is  to  become  of  them,  and 
all  our  countrymen,  if  we  only  hold  our  own  at  points  where  we  are 
strong  ? 

One  observation  can  hardly  fail  to  suggest  itself  here.  Though  it 
was  on  Delhi  that  John  Lawrence's  eyes  and  hopes  were  fixed,  he  was 
far  from  denying  that  other  places  might  call,  even  more  imperatively, 
for  the  presence  of  our  troops.     On  two  points  only  he  insisted  : 


22  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

one  was  the  necessity  for  action,  for  action  that  is  of  some  kind  or 
other.  Do  something  to  show  that  you  are  not  afraid  ;  take  the  in- 
itiative ;  waverers  will  infallibly  join  those  who  show  the  boldest 
front  ;  inaction  at  Meerut  has  lost  us  Delhi  ;  inaction  at  Umballa 
may  lose  us  India.  Such  was  the  gisfof  all  his  exhortations.  Sec- 
ond, and  only  less  important  :  take  a  wide  view  ;  do  not  act  as  they 
have  done  and  are  still  doing  at  Meerut ;  think  not  merely  of  the 
safety  of  your  own  cantonment,  your  own  fort,  your  own  force,  or 
even  your  own  province,  but  think  of  India  as  a  whole.  What  wiser 
or  more  opportune  advice  could  have  been  given  ?  If  John  Law- 
rence, as  a  civilian,  had  a  necessarily  imperfect  appreciation  of  the 
purely  military  conditions  of  the  problem,  he  had,  what  was  much 
more  important,  a  complete  grasp  of  its  moral  and  political  con- 
ditions. He  knew  the  people  of  India  thoroughly,  and,  knowing 
them,  he  had  a  right  to  point  out  what  dangers  must  be  dared,  and 
what  rules  of  warfare  disregarded. 

General  Anson,  if  he  found  at  Umballa  much  to  perplex,  found 
also  not  a  little  to  aid  and  to  encourage  him.  The  Cis-Sutlej  Divi- 
sion, the  most  difficult  and  complicated  in  the  Punjab,  was  in  excel- 
lent hands,  and  so  also  were  nearly  all  its  districts.  Barnes,  the 
Commissioner,  Douglas  Forsyth,  the  Deputy  Commissioner  of  Um- 
balla, MacAndrew,  one  of  the  Assistant  Commissioners,  and  George 
Ricketts,  the  Deputy  Commissioner  of  Loodiana,  had  been  doing 
all  that  men  could  do  to  meet  the  crisis.  Already  Forsyth,  antici- 
pating the  telegram  of  the  Chief  Commissioner  which  I  have 
quoted,  had  summoned  the  '  protected '  Maharaja  of  Puttiala, 
whose  dominions  were  almost  surrounded  by  our  own,  to  do  his 
part  towards  securing  the  safety  of  his  protectors.  Already  the 
Maharaja  had  responded  to  the  appeal,  had  come  down  to  an  in- 
terview, had  placed  his  whole  force  at  our  disposal,  and  had  sent 
forward  a  detachment  to  Thanesur,  to  guard  the  Grand  Trunk 
Road,  the  main  artery  of  communication  between  the  Punjab  and 
Delhi.  Already  the  Raja  of  Jheend,  another  of  those  great  'pro- 
tected '  chiefs,  without  even  waiting  to  be  summoned,  had  concen- 
trated his  troops,  and  was  nearing  the  cantonment  of  Kurnal,  a 
point  still  further  down  the  road,  and  was  thus  acting,  at  the  same 
time,  as  the  vanguard  of  the  English  army  and  as  a  breakwater 
against  the  mutineers,  if,  in  the  enthusiasm  of  their  first  success, 
they  might  be  disposed  to  advance  against  us  from  Delhi.  Already 
the  Raja  of  Nabha,  the  third  of  our  protected  or  protecting  chief- 
tains, was  on  his  way  to  Loodiana,  the  other  point  of  danger  speci- 
fied by  John  Lawrence  in  his  telegram  of   May  13.     The  civil 


i857  THE   HOUR   AND    THE    MAN.  23 

treasury  and  civil  lines  at  Umballa  had  already  been  transferred  to 
the  protection  of  the  trusted  Sikh  police.  The  ferries  of  the  river 
had  been  placed  under  strict  watch  and  ward,  and  the  numerous 
smaller  Sikh  chieftains  whom  we  had  confirmed  in  their  jagheers,, 
on  condition  of  an  annual  payment,  had  been  called  upon  by  Barnes 
to  furnish  a  contingent  of  men  instead — and  had  already  complied 
with  the  demand. 

All  this  looked  well  enough.  But  there  were  also  grave  obsta- 
cles to  an  advance,  for  which  the  Commander-in-Chief  was  only 
partially  responsible.  He  had  left  behind  him  something  like 
mutiny  even  among  the  faithful  Ghoorkas  at  Jutogh,  and  some- 
thing still  more  like  panic,  and  panic  of  the  most  disgraceful  kind, 
among  the  European  inhabitants  of  Simla.  The  European  regi- 
ments, which  had  come  down  promptly  enough  from  the  hills  at 
Umballa,  found  there  what  is  the  usual,  it  may  almost  be  said  the 
invariable,  state  of  things  when  an  English  force  is  called  upon  to 
act  in  an  emergency.  Nothing  was  ready.  There  was  a  lack  of 
tents,  of  medical  appliances,  of  carriage,  of  baggage  animals.  There 
were  no  heavy  guns,  no  reserve  artillery  ammunition.  Even  the 
supply  of  small  ammunition  had  run  short.  The  siege  train  was  at 
Phillour,  some  eight  miles  off,  and  there  was  no  escort  available  to 
bring  it  up.  Cholera  had  begun  to  show  itself  in  the  overcrowded 
barracks,  and,  worse  than  all,  the  mutinous  spirit  which  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief had  coquetted  with  and  had  left  behind  him,  as 
though  it  were  of  no  account,  in  the  Umballa  cantonment  when  he 
passed  on  to  the  hills  at  Simla  in  April,  had  been  smouldering  on 
ever  since,  and  had  burst  into  a  momentary  flame  on  the  day  of 
the  outbreak  at  Meerut.  On  that  occasion  the  mutineers  had  been 
coaxed  rather  than  coerced  into  submission,  and  Anson  now  saw 
clearly  enough  that  he  could  not  afford  either  to  take  such  men 
with  him  to  Delhi,  or  to  leave  them  behind  him,  with  arms  in  their 
hands,  at  Umballa.  Why  not  then  follow  the  example  of  Lahore, 
and  utilising  the  large  European  force  at  his  disposal,  render  the 
disaffected  Sepoys  at  least  innocuous  by  disarming  them  at  once  ? 

In  vain  did  General  Anson  himself  receive  evidence  of  their 
mutinous  spirit  when  he  ordered  them  *to  advance  by  wings,'  and 
they  declined  to  do  so.  In  vain  did  Sir  John  Lawrence  urge  upon 
him  by  letters  and  by  reiterated  telegrams  the  step  which  instincts 
of  self-preservation  seemed  to  demand.  The  ofificers  of  the  muti- 
nous regiments  still  protested  their  belief  in  the  men.  Anson 
yielded  his  better  judgment  to  them,  and  met  the  appeals  of  the 
Chief  Commissioner  by  that  noti  possiimiis  which,  with   those  who 


24  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

once  allow  themselves  to  plead  it,  is  so  omnipotent.  The  arms 
which  he  allowed  the  mutineers  to  retain  were,  of  course,  soon  used 
against  us,  and  what  might  have  been  done,  thoroughly  and  at  once, 
without  firing  a  shot,  was  only  half-done,  later  on,  with  much  ex- 
penditure of  time  and  trouble  and  life. 

But  we  must  take  care  not  to  blame  Anson  unjustly,  and  he  and 
the  Chief  Commissioner  shall  henceforward  speak  on  this  and  other 
subjects  for  themselves.  On  his  arrival  at  Umballa  on  May  17, 
Anson  replied  to  the  Chief  Commissioner  as  follows  : — 

My  dear  Sir  John, — I  have  received  your  letter  dated  the  13th,  the 
main  purport  of  which  was  to  urge  the  immediate  recovery  of  Delhi. 
Things  are,  however,  altered  since  that  date.  The  whole  of  the  army 
(native)  may  be  said  to  be  in  a  state  of  mutiny.  None  are  to  be  depended 
upon.  There  were  two  great  objects,  besides  the  prestige  of  success 
which  you  contemplated,  the  saving  of  the  lives  of  the  European  com- 
munity and  the  recovery  of  the  magazine.  The  former,  it  is  ascertained, 
have  been  mostly  sacrificed  ;   the  latter  was  blown  up. 

But  it  was,  and  is,  impossible  to  move  for  the  want  of  tents,  &c.  The 
second  European  regiment  only  arrived  this  morning — and  all  of  them 
having  been  brought  in  such  a  hurry,  and  so  quickly — they  have  nothing 
with  them.  We  hear  that  many  regiments  have  joined  the  mutineers  in 
Delhi,  the  gates  of  which  are  closed,  and  guns  mounted  on  them.  The 
walls  would  be  nothing  against  guns  of  heavy  calibre.  But  we  have 
none  nearer  than  Phillour,  and  only  two  troops  with  six-pounders.  At 
Meerut  there  is  a  light  field  battery  of  nine-pounders.  My  intelligence 
from  Meerut  is  very  scanty.  I  instructed  General  Hewitt  to  be  prepared 
to  join  me  with  all  the  force  he  could  spare,  after  providing  for  the  protec- 
tion of  the  cantonments.     I  have  not  heard  from  him  what  this  would  be. 

We  cannot  count  upon  our  two  Native  Infantry  regiments  and  one  of 
cavalry.  They  have  not  committed  themselves,  and  the  Major-General 
and  their  commanding  officers  represented  their  conduct  as  so  good,  that 
I  gave  them  to  understand  they  should  be  trusted,  and  would  march 
wherever  the  force  marched.  They  objected,  I  was  told,  to  be  divided 
into  wings,  and  said  they  would  be  true  if  allowed  to  go  with  their  col- 
ours. There  is,  however,  no  faith  to  be  placed  in  any,  and  I  should  be 
heartily  glad  to  be  rid  of  them.  The  refusal  of  the  Nusseree  battery  to 
come  into  the  plains  is  a  most  serious  misfortune.  I  am  glad  to  say  they 
have  not  been  violent,  but  I  am  told  they  were  apparently  determined  to 
have  their  own  way,  and  I  have  been  obliged  to  send  one  hundred  men 
of  the  75th  back  to  Kussowlie  to  afford  protection  to  that  place  and 
Simla.  We  have  therefore  enemies  in  our  rear,  and  it  is  difficult  to  say 
from  what  quarter  they  may  not  come.  .   .   . 

It  becomes  now  a  matter  for  your  consideration,  whether  it  would  be 
prudent  to  risk  the  small  European  force  we  have  here  in  an  enterprise 
upon  Delhi.     I  think  not.     It  is  wholly,  in   my  opinion,  insufficient  for 


iSs7  THE    HOUR    AND    THE   MAN.  25 

the  purpose.  The  walls  could,  of  course,  be  battered  down  with 
heavy  guns,  when  we  got  them  up.  The  entrance  might  be  opened, 
and  little  resistance  offered,  but  so  few  men  in  a  large  city  with 
such  narrow  streets,  and  an  immense  armed  population  who  know 
every  turn  and  corner  of  them,  would,  it  appears  to  me,  be  in  a  very 
dangerous  position.  And  if  six  or  seven  hundred  were  disabled,  what 
would  remain  ?  Could  we  hold  it  with  the  whole  country  armed  against 
us  ?  Could  we  either  stay  in  or  out  of  it  ?  My  own  view  of  the  state 
of  things  now  is,  by  carefully  collecting  our  resources,  having  got  rid  of 
the  bad  materials  which  we  cannot  trust,  and  having  supplied  their 
places  with  others  of  a  better  sort,  it  would  not  be  very  long  before  we 
could  proceed,  without  a  chance  of  failure,  in  whatever  direction  we 
might  please. 

Your  telegraphic  message,  informing  me  of  the  measures  you  have 
taken  to  raise  fresh  troops,  confirms  me  in  this  opinion.  I  must  add  also 
that  this  is  now  the  opinion  of  all  here  whom  I  have  consulted  upon  it, 
the  Major-General  and  Brigadier,  the  Adjutant-General  and  the  Quar- 
termaster-General and  Commissary-General.  The  latter  has  however 
offered  a  positive  impediment  to  it  in  the  impossibility  of  providing  what 
would  be  necessary  for  such  an  advance  under  from  sixteen  to  twenty 
days.  I  thought  it  could  have  been  done  in  less,  but  that  was  before  I 
had  seen  Colonel  Thompson.  Indeed,  it  is  very  little  more  than  forty- 
eight  hours  since  I  came  here,  and  every  hour  produces  something  which 
may  alter  a  previous  opinion.  ...  It  would  give  me  great  satisfaction  to 
have  your  views  upon  the  present  crisis,  for  I  would  trust  to  them  more 
than  to  my  experience. 

,  Yours  very  truly, 

George  Anson. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  Chief  Commissioner  gave  again  his 

views  upon  the  crisis,  and  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  they  did 

not  agree  with  those  of  the  Commander-in-Chief.     I  cannot  afford 

to  omit  a  single  word  of  his  letter. 

Rawul  Pindi  :  May  21,  1857. 

My  dear  Sir, — I  telegraphed  last  night  my  reply  to  yours  of  the  17th. 
I  do  not  myself  think  that  the  country  is  anywhere  against  us,  certainly 
not  from  here  to  within  a  few  miles  of  Delhi.  I  served  for  nearly  thir- 
teen years  in  Delhi,  and  know  the  people  well.  My  belief  is  that  with 
good  management  on  the  part  of  the  civil  officers,  it  would  open  its  gates 
on  the  approach  of  our  troops.  It  seems  incredible  to  conceive  that  the 
mutineers  can  hold  and  defend  it.  Still  I  admit  that,  on  military  ])rinci- 
ples,  in  the  present  state  of  affairs,  it  may  not  be  expedient  to  advance  on 
Delhi ;  certainly  not  until  the  Meerut  force  is  prepared  to  act,  which  it 
can  only  be  when  set  free.  Once  relieve  Meerut,  and  give  confidence 
to  the  country,  no  difficulty  regarding  carriage  can  occur.  By  good 
arrangements  the  owners  will  come  forward.  But  in  any  case  it  can  be 
collected. 


26  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

From  Meerut  you  will  be  able  to  form  a  sound  judgment  on  the 
course  to  be  followed.  If  the  country  lower  down  be  disturbed, 
and  the  Sepoys  have  mutinied,  I  conceive  it  would  be  a  paramount 
duty  to  march  that  way,  relieve  each  place,  and  disarm  or  destroy 
the  mutineers.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  all  were  safe,  it  would  be  a 
question  whether  you  would  consolidate  your  resources  there,  or  march 
on  Delhi. 

I  think  it  must  be  allowed  that  our  European  troops  are  not  placed  at 
this  or  that  station,  simply  to  hold  it,  but  to  be  ready  to  move  wherever 
they  may  be  required.  Salubrious  and  centrical  points  for  their  location 
were  selected,  but  so  long  as  we  maintain  our  prestige,  and  keep  the 
country  quiet,  it  cannot  signify  how  many  cantonments  we  abandon. 
But  this  we  cannot  do  if  we  allow  two  or  three  native  corps  to  checkmate 
large  bodies  of  Europeans.  It  will  then  be  a  mere  question  of  lime;  by 
slow  degrees,  but  of  a  certainty,  the  native  troops  tniist  destroy  us. 

We  are  doing  all  we  can  to  strengthen  ourselves,  and  to  reinforce  you 
either  by  direct  or  indirect  means.  But  can  your  Excellency  suppose, 
for  one  moment,  that  the  Irregular  troops  will  remain  staunch,  if  they  see 
our  European  soldiers  cooped  up  in  their  cantonments,  tamely  awaiting 
the  progress  of  events  ? 

Your  Excellency  remarks  that  we  must  '  carefully  collect  our  re- 
sources.' But  what  are  these  resources,  but  our  European  soldiers,  our 
guns  and  our  material  ?  These  are  all  ready  at  hand,  and  only  require 
to  be  handled  wisely  and  vigorously  to  produce  great  results.  We  have 
money  also,  and  the  control  of  the  country.  But  if  disaffection  spread, 
insurrection  will  follow,  and  we  shall  then  neither  be  able  to  collect  the 
revenue  nor  procure  supplies.  , 

Pray  only  reflect  on  the  whole  history  of  India.  Where  have  we 
failed  when  we  acted  vigorously  ?  Where  have  we  succeeded  when 
guided  by  timid  counsels?  Clive  with  twelve  hundred  men  fought  at 
Plassey,  in  opposition  to  the  advice  of  his  leading  officers,  beat  forty 
thousand  men  and  conquered  Bengal.  Monson  retreated  from  the 
Chumbul,  and  before  he  gained  Agra  his  army  was  disorganised,  and 
partially  annihilated.  Look  at  the  Cabul  catastrophe.  It  might  have 
been  averted  by  resolute  and  bold  action.  The  Irregulars  of  the  army, 
the  Kuzzulbashes — in  short  our  friends,  of  whom  we  had  many — only  left 
us  when  they  found  we  were  not  true  to  ourselves.  How  can  it  be  sup- 
posed that  strangers  and  mercenaries  will  sacrifice  everything  for  us  ? 
There  is  a  point  up  to  which  they  will  stand  by  us  ;  for  they  know  that 
we  have  always  been  eventually  successful,  and  that  we  are  good  mas-- 
ters.  But,  go  beyond  this  point,  and  every  man  will  look  to  his  immedi- 
ate benefit,  his  present  safety. 

The  Punjab  Irregulars  are  marching  down  in  the  highest  spirits, 
proud  to  be  trusted,  and,  eager  to  show  their  superiority  over  the  Regu- 
lar troops,  ready  to  fight  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  Europeans.  But 
if,  on  their  arrival,  they  find  the  Europeans  behind  breast-works,  they 
will  begin  to  think  that  the  game  is  up.     Recollect  that  all  this  time,  while 


i857  THE   HOUR    AND   THE   MAN.  27 

we  are  pausing,  the  emissaries  of  the  mutineers  are  writing  to  and  visit- 
ing every  cantonment. 

It  seems  to  me  lamentable  to  think  that  in  no  case  have  the  mutineers 
yet  suffered.  Brigadier  Corbett  has  indeed  managed  admirably.  With  six 
weak  companies  and  his  artillery,  he  disarmed  three  regiments,  and  thus 
rendered  them  harmless.  Brigadier  Innes  seems  to  me  to  have  missed  an 
excellent  opportunity  of  teaching  the  Sepoys  a  lesson,  which  would  have 
cowed  them  for  hundreds  of  miles  round.  Her  Majesty's  6ist  Regiment 
repulsed,  without  an  effort,  the  attacks  of  the  45th,  but  the  Sepoys  got 
off  with  little  loss.  And,  even  then,  they  had  not  the  heart  to  keep  to- 
gether, but  seem  to  have  thrown  away  their  arms  and  dispersed.  At 
Delhi  the  Sepoys  have  murdered  their  officers,  and  taken  our  guns,  but, 
even  there,  they  did  not  stand.  No  number  of  them  can  face  a  moderate 
body  of  Europeans,  fairly  handled.  Of  late  years  even  when  fighting 
under  our  own  banners,  in  a  good  cause,  with  European  officers  at  their 
head  and  English  comrades  at  their  side,  they  have  seldom  done  any- 
thing. As  mutineers,  they  cannot  fight.  They  will  burn,  destroy,  and 
massacre,  but  not  fight. 

I  should  suppose  that  any  pledges  which  were  given  to  the  Umballa 
Sepoys  were  forfeited  when  they  refused  to  obey  orders,  to  march  by 
wings  ;  and,  in  this  view  of  the  matter,  I  would  disband  them  after  taking 
away  their  arms.  The  horses  of  the  cavalry  would  enable  our  Euro- 
peans to  move  forward  without  distress.  But  if  you  still  consider  that 
faith  must  be  kept  with  men  who  have  kept,  and  will  keep,  no  faith  with 
us,  then,  by  all  means,  take  one  regiment  with  you,  making  such  ar- 
rangements as  will  prevent  their  suddenly  turning  round  and  dealing  a 
deadly  blow  against  our  Europeans. 

I  cannot  comprehend  what  the  Commissariat  can  mean  by  requiring 
from  sixteen  to  twenty  days  to  procure  provisions  !  I  am  persuaded  that 
all  you  can  require  to  take  with  you  must  be  procurable  in  two  or  three. 
We  have  had  an  extraordinarily  good  harvest,  and  supplies  must  be 
abundant  between  Umballa  and  Meerut.  The  greater  portion  of  the 
country  is  well  cultivated.  We  are  sending  our  troops  in  every  direc- 
tion without  difficulty,  through  tracts  which  are  comparatively  desert. 

Our  true  policy  is  to  trust  the  Maharaja  of  Puttiala,  and  Raja  of 
Jheend,  and  the  country  generally — for  they  have  shown  evidence  of 
being  on  our  side — but  utterly  to  distrust  the  Regular  Sepoys.  I  would 
spare  no  expense  to  carry  every  European  soldier;  at  any  rate,  to  carry 
every  other  one.  By  alternately  marching  and  riding  their  strength  and 
spirits  will  be  maintained.  We  are  pushing  on  the  Guides,  the  4th  Sikhs, 
and  1st  and  4th  Punjab  regiments  of  Inf^mtry  from  distant  parts  of  the 
Punjab  in  this  way. 

If  there  is  any  officer  in  the  Punjab  whom  your  Excellency  would  wish 
to  have  at  your  side,  pray  don't  hesitate  to  apply  for  him.  There  is  a 
young  officer  now  at  Head-quarters,  who,  though  young  in  years,  has 
seen  much  service,  and  proved  himself  an  excellent  soldier.  I  allude  to 
Captain  Norman,  of  the  Adjutant-General's  office.      Sir  Colin  Campbell 


28  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

had  the  hi;^hest  opinion  of  his  judgn:;eut,  and  when  he  left  Peshawur,  it 
was  considered  a  pubHc  loss. 

There  is,  in  my  judgment,  no  single  letter  in  the  whole  of  Sir 
John  Lawrence's  correspondence  during  the  Mutiny  which  brings 
one  side  of  his  character  more  vigorously  before  us.  It  is  impossi- 
ble, as  we  read,  not  to  see  the  man  as  he  wrote  it,  not  to  feel  some- 
thing of  that  vis  viva  which  communicated  itself  to  everyone  within 
the  sphere  of  his  influence. 

What  was  thought  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  letters  and  telegrams, 
at  the  time,  by  those  who  best  knew  what  need  there  was  for  them, 
I  find  strikingly  illustrated  in  a  book  called  *  Service  and  Adven- 
tures with  the  Meerut  Volunteer  Horse  during  the  Mutinies.' 

Mrs.  P and   iier  husband    (says  the  writer,  R.  Dunlop,  who  had 

never  been  a  subordinate  of  John  Lawrence)  had  been  exceptions  to  the 
sadly  g;eneral  exhibition  of  fright  during-  the  Simla  panic.  Her  husband 
had  gone  down  to  take  his  place  where  manhood  should;  and  she  spoke 
confidently  and  cheerfully,  as  a  brave-hearted  Englishwoman  ought,  of 
the  tremendous  task  which  was  still  before  us.  She  too  spoke,  as  all 
were  speaking,  of  Lawrence  :  Lawrence,  who  not  only  got  through  Her- 
culean labours  himself,  but  sternly  forced  all  malingerers  to  do  their 
duty;  who,  with  the  authority  of  a  master-mind,  flashed  message  after 
message  of  abrupt  command  wherever  the  electric  shock  was  necessary. 
One  of  the  earliest  victims  of  the  struggle  had  sunk,  she  said,  killed  by 
an  attack  of  Lawrence's  telegraphic  messages  ! 

In  a  letter  which  reached  Rawul  Pindi  the  day  after  the  above 
letter  was  written,  but  was  not,  of  course,  an  answer  to  it,  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief dwelt  on  his  difficulties  and  denied  that  there  had 
been  any  undue  delay.  '  Nobody  could  wish  more  than  myself 
that  we  could  have  got  away  sooner.  There  were  no  tents,  no 
ammunition,  not  twenty  rounds  per  man  in  the  pouches  of  the 
Europeans.'  The  troops  could  not,  he  said,  have  moved  forward 
without  carriage.  The  camels  and  the  bullock  train  which  had 
brought  them  down  from  the  hills  had  been  obliged  to  return  to 
fetch  the  tents,  and,  even  so,  an  advance  party  had  been  sent  on  to 
Kurnal  on  the  evening  of  the  17th,  He  thought,  therefore,  that 
the  remark  which  he  had  seen  in  a  telegram  of  James  to  Barnes  to 
the  effect  that  'the  delay  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  w-as  fatal' 
was  not  justifiable. 

John  Lawrence  replied,  expressing  his  regret  if  any  of  his 
remarks  had  given  pain,  explaining  his  general  views,  and  making 
suggestions  which,  from  his  intimate  knowledge  of  Delhi,  he 
thought  midit  be  useful. 


1 857  THE    HOUR    AND    THE    MAN.  29 

Rawul  Pindi  :  May  23,  1857. 

My  dear  General  Anson, — I  enclose  copy  of  Captain  James's  telegraphic 
message  to  which  you  allude  in  your  letter  of  the  19th.  From  it  you 
will  perceive  that  it  does  not  bear  the  objectionable  interpretation  which 
you  suppose.  I  should  greatly  regret  if  any  message  or  letter  of  mine 
should  annoy  you.  I  have  written  warmly  and  strongly  in  favour  of  an 
advance,  because  I  felt  assured  that  such  was  the  true  policy.  However 
much  we  may  be  taken  by  surprise,  our  military  organisation  admits  of 
prompt  action.  The  country  is  almost  sure  to  be  with  us,  if  it  were  only 
that  we  save  them  from  trouble.  And  this  will  more  especially  be  the 
case  in  an  affair  like  the  present,  when  we  have  really  to  contend  only 
with  our  own  troops,  with  whom  the  people  can  have  no  sympathy. 

If  there  be  any  place  where  the  population  will  rise  against  us,  it  is  in 
the  Peshawur  valley,  where  the  people  are  naturally  turbulent  and  highly 
bigoted  and  fanatical,  and  where  the  chiefs  are  hostile  to  us.  Yet,  so 
far,  we  have  found  them  well-disposed.  While  the  chiefs  keep  aloof,  the 
heads  of  villages  are  coming  and  bringing  their  quotas  of  men.  .  .  . 
I  cannot  comprehend  why  Colonel  Thompson  requires  so  much  sup- 
plies. To  carry  so  much  food  with  the  troops  is  to  encumber  the  Col- 
umn and  waste  our  money.  To  guard  against  accidents,  three  or  four 
days'  supplies  should  be  taken,  but  no  more.  My  belief  is  that  ten  thou- 
sand troops  might  march  all  over  the  North-West,  and,  provided  they 
paid  for  what  they  required,  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  supplies  would  be 
experienced. 

I  still  think  that  no  real  resistance  at  Delhi  will  be  attempted.  But,  of 
course,  we  must  first  get  the  Meerut  force  into  order,  and,  in  moving 
against  Delhi,  go  prepared  to  fight.  My  impression  is  that,  on  the  ap- 
proach of  our  troops,  the  mutineers  will  either  disperse,  or  the  people  of 
the  city  rise  and  open  their  gates.  An  officer  of  intelligence  with  a  few 
Irregulars  might  move  from  Meerut  to  Shahdaruh,  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  Jumna,  about  three  miles  from  Delhi.  There  he  would  be  perfectly 
safe,  and  could  open  a  communication  with  the  loyal  inhabitants.  He 
should  be,  if  possible,  well  acquainted  with  the  country  about  Delhi,  and 
have  some  money  with  him.  He  would  then  get  hundreds  to  go  and 
luring  him  all  the  information  he  could  desire.  There  is  no  difficulty  in 
passing  across  the  river  at  many  points.  There  are  many  ferries,  both 
above  and  below  the  city.  I  have  myself  crossed  it  at  midnight  on 
horseback  with  a  party  of  sowars.  But,  even  in  flood,  the  people  cross 
by  holding  on  at  the  tail  of  a  buffalo,  and  will,  in  this  way,  pass  unsus- 
pected and  bring  information.  I  think  also  a  couple  of  hundred  sowars 
might  push  on  to  within  a  mile  or  so  of  Delhi  along  the  high  road  via 
Kurnal,  Paniput,  and  Soniput.  Our  troops  are  moving  down  as  fast 
as  possible  ;  but  it  must  be  some  time  before  they  can  be  brought  to 
bear  in  your  quarter.     .     .     . 

P.S. — I  strongly  recommend  that  no  permanent  arrangement  be 
made  to  supply  the  place  of  the  Regular  native  troops  who  have  com- 
mitted themselves.     Now,  if  ever,  will  be  the  time  for  a  change  of  system. 


30  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

It  will  be  s-een  that  what  most  of  all  distressed  John  Lawrence 
in  the  position  of  affairs  at  Umballa  was  the  delay  of  sixlecn  days 
required  by  Colonel  Thompson,  the  Commissary-General,  for  the 
collection  of  supplies  !  During  that  time  he  believed — as  he  be- 
lieved also  when  looking  calmly  back  at  all  the  circumstances  of 
the  case  when  the  Mutiny  was  over — that,  if  Ave  gave  no  sign  of 
acting  on  the  offensive,  the  whole  population  between  the  Jumna 
and  the  Sutlej  would  rise,  and  that  the  chiefs  of  Puttiala,  Jheend 
and  Nabha,  who  performed  such  excellent  service  afterwards  would, 
even  if  they  stood  by  us,  be  deserted  by  their  own  troops,  or  else 
be  compelled  by  them  to  join  the  insurrection.  He  could  not  for- 
get how,  ten  years  before,  Major  Broadfoot,  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral's 'Agent  for  the  frontier,'  had  managed  to  raise  supplies  for 
the  advance  of  our  army  at  the  beginning  of  the  Sikh  war  from  this 
very  place,  in  the  space  of  a  few  days  only,  though  the  Commissary- 
General  of  that  time  had  told  Lord  Hardinge  that  a  month  or  six 
weeks  would  be  necessary  !  Still  less  could  he  forget  how,  when 
Lord  Hardinge  had  written  to  him  as  Collector  of  Delhi,  after  the 
terrible  battle  of  Ferozeshah,  begging  him  to  do  his  utmost  to  get 
carriage  for  the  reinforcements,  he  had  himself,  in  a  very  short 
space  of  time,  collected  together  four  thousand  carts  and  beasts  of 
burden,  and,  with  the  utmost  good  will  of  their  owners,  had  de- 
spatched them  to  bear  their  part  in  the  great  victory  of  Sobraon. 
His  urgency,  therefore,  now  was  justified  by  facts.  What  had  been 
done  once,  might  be  done  again.  And  happily  it  was  done,  in 
much  the  same  way,  by  an  appeal  to  the  civil  authorities,  Barnes 
and  Forsyth,  who,  knowing  the  country  as  no  one  else  knew  it  at 
that  moment,  and  having  powers  of  command  which  could  hardly 
belong  to  the  military  authorities,  managed  to  gather  together,  in 
less  than  a  week,  two  thousand  camels,  two  thousand  bearers,  and 
five  hundred  carts  ! 

Thus  one  great  obstacle  to  the  advance  had  been  removed,  and 
in  deference  to  repeated  messages  from  Lord  Canning  as  well  as 
from  John  Lawrence,  General  Anson  decided  to  move  onward 
without  waiting  for  the  siege  train.  He  wrote  to  General  Hewitt, 
making  all  the  arrangements  for  a  junction  with  the  Meerut  force 
at  Baghput ;  he  sent  on  his  own  force  by  detachments  ;  and  on  the 
25th  of  the  month  he  himself  left  Umballa  with  the  remaining  por- 
tion of  the  Europeans.  It  was  his  first  and  his  last  day's  march. 
For  on  the  following  day  he  lay  death-stricken  at  Kurnal,  the  victim 
of  the  terrible  scourge  which  had  broken  out  in  the  crowded  bar- 
racks at  Umballa,  and  which  knew  no   distinction  of  rank.     Sir 


i857  THE   HOUR    AND   THE   MAN.  31 

Henry  Barnard,  a  Crimean  general  who  had  lately  come  to  India, 
was  hastily  sent  for  from  Umballa,  and  arrived  just  in  time  to  take 
over  the  command  from  the  dying  general  and  to  receive  his  last 
messages.  Anson's  was  indeed  an  unkind  fate.  With  Lord  Can- 
ning telegraphing  to  him  from  Calcutta  and  John  Lawrence  from 
Rawul  Pindi,  to  strike  a  deadly  blow,  while  the  officers  of  his  staff 
were  telling  him  with  one  consent  that  it  was  impossible  to  move  at 
all,  he  can  have  had  no  easy  life.  And  everyone  must  regret  that 
so  brave  a  soldier,  after  surmounting  some  at  least  of  his  difficulties, 
did  not  live  long  enough  to  show  the  mettle  which  many  believed 
him  to  possess,  and  to  die,  if  not  on  the  field  of  battle,  at  least,  as 
did  his  successor  six  short  weeks  later,  after  measuring  his  sword 
victoriously  with  the  enemy  within  sight  of  the  minarets  of  Delhi. 
While  his  body  still  lay  in  the  adjoining  room,  Barnard  wrote  a 
generous  letter  to  the  Chief  Commissioner,  who  had  so  chafed  at 
his  delay,  pointing  out  how  great  his  difficulties  had  been  and  how 
strenuously  he  had  striven  to  breast  them.  And  it  is  not  without 
interest  to  notice  that  on  the  day  of  his  death  the  Chief  Commis- 
sioner had  himself  been  engaged  in  writing  him  a  letter  which 
dropped  no  hint  of  censure  for  the  past,  and  dwelt  chiefly  on  the 
reinforcements  from  the  Punjab  which  he  hoped  soon  to  send  him. 
I  have  dwelt  long  and  quoted  largely  from  the  correspondence 
of  John  Lawrence  with  the  Commander-in-Chief  during  the  first 
fortnight  of  the  Mutiny,  because  it  is  impossible  to  read  even  this 
much  of  it,  without  gaining  a  real  insight  into  the  character  and 
policy  of  the  writer.  It  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  whether  this 
or  that  proposal  was  altogether  right  or  was  urged  with  all  the  quali- 
fications which  military  specialists,  or  those  who  are  wise  after  the 
event,  may  discover.  It  is  rather  a  question  of  his  grasp  of  the 
situation  as  a  whole,  of  the  way  in  which  he  at  once  showed  that 
he  was  the  man  to  fill  the  gap  that  had  been  made,  to  fill  any  gap 
that  might  hereafter  be  made,  by  the  spread  of  the  Mutiny.  The 
outbreak  itself  shows  us  that  the  opportunity  has  at  length  come  to 
the  man.  The  measures  of  the  first  few  days  show  sufficiently  that 
the  man  will  not  be  wanting  to  the  opportunity.  That  he  was  right 
in  his  two  main  suggestions  to  General  Anson,  the  immediate  dis- 
armament of  the  Sepoys  at  Umballa,  and  the  earliest  possible 
advance  towards  Delhi,  alike  from  Umballa  and  Meerut,  hardly 
indeed  admits  of  question.  What  the  effect  on  India  would  have 
been  had  Delhi  been  left,  as  it  is  understood  some  of  the  military 
authorities  would  have  advised  that  it  should,  unmolested  by  us, 
till  reinforcements  should  arrive  from  England,  may  be  inferred 


32  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1S57 

from  tlie  influence  that  its  name  and  prestige  and  that  of  the 
restored  Mogul  sovereignty  did  uncjuestionably  exercise  in  every 
Sepoy  cantonment  and  in  every  native  bazaar  from  Peshawur  to^ 
Calcutta,  long  after  we  had  begun  to  threaten  its  existence,  and 
down  even  to  the  moment  of  its  fall. 

As  regards  the  mutinous  Sepoys  at  Umballa,  that  Sir  John  Law- 
rence and  not  the  military  authorities  on  the  spot  was  right,  is 
shown,  beyond  all  question,  by  the  result.  Of  three  regiments,  one 
of  cavalry  and  two  of  infantry,  which  might  have  been  disarmed — 
as  had  already  been  done  at  Lahore,  and  was  about  to  be  done, 
without  a  blow  being  struck  or  a  drop  of  blood  being  spilt,  at  Pe- 
shawur— one,  the  light  cavalry  regiment,  in  order  that  it  might  be 
made  as  innocuous  as  possible,  was  sent  off,  in  detachments  to 
places  where  it  was  not  wanted,  and  from  which  the  men  took  an 
early  opportunity  of  deserting.  A  second,  the  5th  Native  Infantry, 
was  left  behind  at  Umballa  with  a  force  to  guard  it,  and  being  at 
last  detected  in  a  plot  to  seize  the  guns  of  the  siege  train  when  it 
arrived  from  Phillour,  the  men  were  disarmed  and  gradually  slunk 
off  to  Delhi.  The  third  corps,  the  60th,  the  Commander-in-Chief 
had  proposed  to  take  with  him  in  his  advance.  But  when  his  small 
European  force  demurred,  not  unreasonably,  to  facing  the  enemy 
with  a  more  than  doubtful  enemy  within  their  own  ranks,  he  sent 
them  off  instead  to  Rohtuck,  where  they,  shortly  afterwards,  mutinied, 
fired  on  their  officers,  and  went  off  to  Delhi  to  swell  the  rebel  army. 

Sir  Henry  Barnard  was  new  to  the  country,  and  was  therefore 
encompassed  by  special  difficulties  of  his  own.  But  he  lost  no 
time  in  assuring  the  Chief  Commissioner  that  having  put  his  hand 
to  the  plough,  he  would  not  look  back.  He  wrote  on  the  day  of 
his  predecessor's  death  : — 

It  is  only  on  this  day  that  I  expect  the  necessary  supply  of  ammunition 
to  arrive  at  Umballa.  I  have  determined  (I  say  /,  for  poor  Anson  could 
only  recognise  me  and  hand  me  over  the  command  when  I  arrived  here 
last  night)  not  to  wait  for  the  siege  train,  but,  after  the  exchange  from 
six  to  nine  pounders  has  been  effected  to-day,  to  bring  up  all  the  remain- 
der of  the  force  from  Umballa,  Mr.  Barnes  undertaking  to  convoy  the 
train.  The  60th  Native  Infantry  I  have  detached  to  Hansi  to  intercept 
fugitives  or  repel  advance,  a  threat  which  does  not  seem  likely  to  be  put 
into  execution,  but  it  employs  them  honourably  and  gets  t]iein  out  of  the 
way. 

And  on  the  following  day  he  writes  again  : — 

I  have  nothing  to  say  from  IMeerut.  Much  has  got  to  be  explained. 
Doubtless  it  isy"i:i;/<^/ in  this  country  if  your  European  troops  are  not  at 


i857  THE   HOUR   AND   THE   MAN.  33 

once  to  the  fore  for  any  service.  But,  as  regards  Umballa,  all  has  been 
activity  and  movement  ;  but  all  were  in  a  manner  paralysed,  inasmuch 
as,  instead  of  devoting  every  thought  and  energy  to  the  service,  the  safety 
of  family  and  friends  came  uppermost.  I  would  pity,  really,  rather  than 
condemn.  I  have  lent  every  assistance  in  my  power.  General  Anson 
placed  me  in  command,  and  so  long  as  I  exercise  any  power  you  may 
rest  assured  every  energy  shall  be  devoted  to  the  object  I  have  now  in 
view — namely,  concentrating  all  the  force  I  can  collect,  securing  the 
bridge  at  Bhagput,  securing  communication  with  Meerut.  For  this  ob- 
ject all  is  now  in  actual  motion.  .  .  .  General  Reed  has  notified  his  in- 
tention of  coming  here  ;  but,  of  course,  nothing  is  to  be  delayed  waiting 
for  his  arrival.     I  shall  keep  you  informed  of  all  by  telegraph. 

John  Lawrence  replied  to  these  and  other  letters  from  Sir  H. 
Barnard  on  the  31st. 

My  dear  Sir  Henry, — Many  thanks  for  your  different  letters.  I  sin- 
cerely hope  that  nothing  I  wrote  to  General  Anston  disturbed  his  death- 
bed. I  had  no  intention  to  reflect  on  him  ;  to  wound  his  feelings. 
What  I  wished  to  do  was  to  show  him  the  crisis  which  had  arrived  ;  the 
gulf  which  was  yawning  at  his  feet.  No  man  would  more  truly  desire 
to  care  for  the  European  soldiers  than  I  would,  for  I  know  their  value. 
But  there  are  times  when  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  expose  them.  Up 
here  we  could  not  foresee  that  they  were  so  badly  supplied  with  am- 
munition and  the  necessaries  for  a  march. 

The  officers  about  the  Commander-in-Chief  could  not  have  reflected  — 
I  mean  those  who  were  opposed  to  an  advance — that  in  little  more  than 
a  month  the  rains  would  intervene  ;  and  therefore  that,  if  we  delayed  to 
recover  Delhi,  we  should  have  to  wait  until  the  cold  weather.  But  I 
should  like  to  ask  such  officers  where  British  India  would  have  been  by 
that  time  but  in  the  hands  of  our  enemies.  Our  troops — I  mean  the 
Europeans — where  in  any  numbers,  might  have  held  the  ground  on 
which  they  stood,  but  no  more.  As  regards  the  native  Regular  troops, 
I  believe  that  all  are  disaffected  and  untrustworthy,  and  that  many  even 
of  the  Irregular  Hindustani  Horse  sympathise  with  them.  But  amongst 
the  very  worst  of  these  troops  I  should  rank  those  of  Umballa.  What, 
I  would  ask,  has  been  the  meaning  of  all  these  fires  in  Umballa  for  the 
last  three  months  ?  Who  have  been  their  authors  ?  It  is  notorious  that 
they  have  been  perpetrated  by  the  native  troops. 

I  look  on  it  that  the  only  safe  way  to  deal  with  mercenary  troops  in  a 
state  of  mutiny,  is  to  overpower  or  disarm  them.  If  we  don't,  we  are  in 
constant  danger  of  their  suddenly  turning  on  us,  and  inflicting  a  deadly 
blow.  Moreover,  at  the  best,  we  must  employ  a  body  of  good  troops  to 
watch  them,  and  so  weaken  ourselves  at  a  time  when  every  European 
soldier  who  is  available  should  be  brought  to  bear  against  the  enemy. 

So  now,  at  length,  to  the  intense  relief  of  the  Chief  Commission- 

VOL.  II. — 3 


34  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

er's  mind,  General  Barnard's  force  was  in  full  march  for  Delhi. 
He  reached  Alipore,  twelve  miles  from  his  destination,  on  June  5. 
But  here  he  was  obliged  to  halt  till  he  should  be  joined  by  the  siege  ■ 
train  from  Phillour,  and  by  the  force  which  was  moving  up  from 
Meerut  under  Brigadier-General  Wilson  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Jumna.  He  had  not  long  to  wait  for  either.  For  on  the  following 
morning,  after  a  series  of  adventures  which  those  who  were  respon- 
sible for  its  safety,  and  who  knew  what  turned  on  it,  might  well 
regard  as  miraculous,  the  Siege  Train  arrived.  By  dint  of  incredi- 
ble exertions,  the  train  had  been  equipped  within  seven  days  of  the 
arrival  of  the  telegram  which  ordered  it.  But  Phillour  was  eighty 
miles  from  Umballa.  There  was  no  dependable  escort  to  be  found 
amongst  our  own  troops,  and  betAveen  the  two  places  rolled  the 
broad  and  rapid  river  Sutlej,  then  rising  from  hour  to  hour,  and 
bridged  only  by  a  bridge  of  boats  which  the  torrent  might  at  any 
moment,  sweep  away.  It  was  a  race,  in  the  literal  sense  of  the 
word,  against  wind  and  tide,  and  the  Siege  Train  won — won  by 
two  hours  only.  For  two  hours  had  not  passed  after  the  last  gun- 
carriage  had  reached  the  opposite  shore,  before  the  whole  bridge 
was  swept  away." 

The  Sepoys  of  the  3rd  Regiment  at  Phillour,  who  had  offered  to 
escort  the  Train,  were  known  to  be  mutinous  to  the  core  ;  and 
they,  too,  only  just  missed  their  opportunity.  In  a  moment  of 
fatuity,  or  inadvertence,  they  allowed  the  heavy  guns  to  cross  the 
river  in  front  of  them,  and  when  the  bridge  was  swept  away,  they 
found  themselves  on  the  wrong  side  !  Their  further  services  were 
dispensed  with  for  the  present,  and  the  ever-ready  Raja  of  Nabha 
stepped  into  the  gap  and  supplied  an  escort.  On  the  27th  the  Train 
reached  Umballa,  escaped  the  machinations  of  the  5th  Native  In- 
fantry there,  and  caught  up  General  Barnard  on  the  6th  of  June. 

On  the  7th,  Wilson's  small  brigade,  which  in  its  short  march 
from  Meerut  had  already  been  twice  engaged  with  the  enemy,  and 
had  twice  sent  them  flying  back  to  Delhi,  arrived,  and  on  the  fol- 
lowing day  both  forces  moved  on  together,  inspired  by  the  success 
which  had  already  been  won,  and  burning  with  an  inextinguishable 
desire  to  revenge  the  brutal  murder  of  English  officers,  English 
women,  and  English  children  on  every  black  face  that  would  dare 
to  meet  them  in  the  open  field. 

In  the  brilliant  battle  of  Budli-ke-Serai,  fought  in  the  cool  of  the 
early  morning,  they  dislodged  the  enemy  from  a  strong  position 

'  Cave  Brown's  Punjab  and  Delhi,  vol.  i.  p.  206. 


r857  THE   HOUR    AND   THE  MAN.  35 

which  they  had  themselves  selected,  five  miles  from  Delhi ;  and 
then,  in  a  second  engagement,  fought  beneath  the  full  fury  of  the 
June  sun,  swept  them  from  a  second  position  some  miles  further  on, 
into  the  city  itself.  The  rout  of  the  enemy  was  complete.  We 
took  thirteen  of  their  guns,  and  found  ourselves  once  more  the  un- 
disputed masters  of  our  own  cantonments,  and  of  that  immortal 
*  Ridge '  from  which,  for  twelve  long  weeks  to  come,  exposed  to 
nearly  every  suffering  to  which  human  flesh  is  heir,  we  were  never 
to  come  down  except  to  smite  the  foe,  and  never  to  abandon  till 
the  guilty  city  which  it  threatened,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately, 
which  threatened  it,  was  in  our  hands. 

It  was  a  perilous  prize  of  victory,  this  narrow  ridge,  and  one 
which  not  a  few  of  the  cooler  heads  and  braver  hearts  to  be  found 
in  our  force  must,  as  they  settled  down  to  the  work  before  them, 
have  felt  that,  perhaps,  they  could  have  done  better  without.  A 
force  consisting  of  3,000  men  all  told,  of  twenty  field  guns,  and  a 
small  Siege  Train,  were  taking  up  their  position  at  one  corner  of 
its  vast  circumference,  to  besiege,  or  at  least  to  menace,  a  city  of 
150,000  inhabitants,  defended  by  strong  fortifications  which  we 
ourselves  had  constructed  and  repaired,  and  which  bristled  with 
guns  many  tiraes  more  numerous,  of  far  heavier  metal,  and  much 
better  served  than  any  that  we  could  bring  against  them.  Within 
the  city  was  an  arsenal  where  arms  of  every  description  were  to  be 
had  for  the  asking,  and  the  whole  was  garrisoned  by  an  army  of 
revolted  Sepoys  who  were  all  the  more  formidable  from  the  vague- 
ness of  the  guesses  we  could  form  as  to  their  numbers,  had  all  been 
trained  and  armed  by  ourselves,  were  all  spurred  on  by  the  fanati- 
cism of  an  outraged  religion  or  the  zeal  of  a  rejuvenescent  nation- 
ality, and  were,  all  of  them,  determined  that  since  their  crimes  had 
made  them  to  carry  their  lives  in  their  hands,  they  would  sell  their 
lives,  if  sell  them  they  must,  as  dearly  as  possible. 

It  might  well  seem,  then,  to  our  leaders,  as  they  looked  towards 
the  great  city  with  its  famous  fortress,  its  teeming  population,  its 
historic  memories,  its  glorious  mosques  and  minarets,  that  they  had 
entered  on  a  hopeless  or  even  an  absurd  task.  But  behind  that 
ridge  there  went  stretching  away  the  Grand  Trunk  Road,  held  by 
faithful  Sikh  chiefs,  and  beyond  the  horizon,  on  either  side  of  its 
course,  lay  the  Punjab,  the  youngest  and  most  warlike,  and  yet  the 
most  trustworthy  of  all  our  possessions  ;  and  over  the  Punjab  pre- 
sided the  man  who  had  held  and  nursed  it  ever  since  it  came  into 
our  hands,  had  attached  it  to  our  rule,  and  was  now  prepared  to 
striij  it  of  its  last  available  regiment,  and  of  its  most  trusted  and 


36  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

able  officers — nay,  if  the  need  arose,  to  draw  in  its  frontier,  rather 
than  allow  the  imperial  enterprise  which  he  had  urged,  and  on 
which  the  safety  of  the  whole,  as  he  thought,  depended,  to  be  given 
up  in  despair.  Those,  then,  who  reflected  that  the  Grand  Trunk 
Road  led  up  to  a  province  every  man  of  which  was  in  his  right 
place  ;  that  along  it  were  to  come  to  our  help  in  rapid  and  contin- 
uous succession,  regiments  of  young  Sikhs  who  had  grown  up  under 
our  shadow,  of  old  Sikhs  who  had  fought  against  us,  of  hardy  Mo- 
hammedans from  the  border  who  had  often  made  our  lives  a  burden 
to  us ;  long  lines  of  baggage  waggons  and  baggage  animals,  vast 
stores  of  shot  and  shell,  and  of  all  the  provisions  and  munitions  of 
war  ;  above  all,  men  like  Coke  and  Rothney,  Daly  and  Taylor, 
Wilde  and  Vaughan,  Chamberlain  and  Nicholson  ;  more  than  this, 
that  over  the  whole  province,  from  Rawul  Pindi,  urging  on  the 
over-cautious,  keeping  back  the  rash,  supplying  the  mind  that  moved 
the  whole,  was  working,  and  watching,  and  waiting  the  ever  anxious 
but  never  despondent  John  Lawrence — might  well  take  fresh  heart 
of  grace  and  feel  that,  if  the  impossible  could  be  done  at  all,  it  was 
through  him  that  it  would  be  done. 


CHAPTER   II. 

MUTINY-POLICY  OF  JOHN   LAWRENCE. 

May — June  1857. 

In  the  last  chapter  I  have  endeavoured  to  bring  into  clear  relief  the 
steps  taken  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  ensure  that  a  speedy  blow- 
should  be  struck,  not  at  the  limbs  but  at  the  heart  of  the  rebellion, 
and  have  described  the  muster  and  the  march  of  our  small  army, 
which,  even  then,  had  begun  to  feel  something  of  his  presence  or  of 
his  spirit  in  its  midst,  from  the  cool  heights  of  Simla  to  the  burning 
fiery  furnace  before  Delhi.  It  remained  for  him  now  to  justify  the 
advice — the  foolhardy  advice  as  many  deemed  it — which  he  had 
given  ;  and  while  he  kept  his  own  province  in  hand  and  carried  on 
its  administration  almost  as  though  it  had  been  a  time  of  profound 
peace,  to  supply  men  and  money,  and  all  the  material  of  war  for 
the  prosecution  of  that  vast  and  perilous  enterprise.  How  did  he 
set  about  it  ? 

Lahore  and  Umritsur  had  been  saved,  and  Ferozepore  and  Phil- 
lour  strengthened,  by  Montgomery  and  his  coadjutors,  while  as  yet, 
happily  for  the  English  rule,  the  disastrous  news  which  flashed  along 
the  wires  had  reached  the  ears  of  the  English  authorities  alone.  But 
what  of  the  more  remote  parts  of  the  Punjab,  of  Mooltan  and  Seal- 
kote,  of  Huzara  and  the  Derajat  ?  Above  all,  what  of  Peshawur  ? 
There  were  dangers  in  every  course  that  could  be  taken.  But  a 
few  hours'  consideration  sufficed  to  show  John  Lawrence  the  course 
in  which  there  were  the  fewest,  and  he  straightway  plunged  into  it. 

Trust  the  Irregulars  and  the  natives  of  the  Punjab  generally,  but 
utterly  distrust  the  Regular  army.  Utilise  the  Irregulars  in  every 
way  you  can.  Bring  them  in  from  the  frontier,  where  their 
work  has  been  well  done,  to  the  points  of  danger  in  the  interior  of 
the  country  where  they  may  have  plenty  of  work  of  a  novel  kind. 
Add  largely  to  the  numbers  of  each  existing  regiment.  Raise  fresh 
regiments,  as  occasion  may  require,  but  do  so  under  proper  precau- 
tions, remembering  that  the  weapon  with   which  you    are  arming 

37 


38  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

yourselves  may,  unless  it  is  well  wielded,  be  turned  against  your- 
selves. As  for  the  Regulars,  watch  them,  isolate  them,  send  them 
to  detached  frontier  forts,  where  the  population  are  naturally  hostile 
to  them,  and  where  it  will  be  difficult  for  them  to  act  in  concert. 
If  any  symptoms  of  mutiny  show  themselves,  disarm  them  at  once. 
If  mutiny  breaks  forth  into  act,  destroy  them,  if  possible,  on  the 
spot  ;  and  if  they  take  to  flight,  raise  the  native  populations  against 
them  and  hunt  them  down.  A  few  stern  examples  at  first  will  save 
much  bloodshed  in  the  end.  Find  out  the  Sikh  chiefs  living  in 
your  respective  districts  and  enlist  their  martial  instincts  and  their 
natural  hatred  of  the  Hindustanis  on  your  side  at  once.  Collect 
camels  and  beasts  of  burden  at  suitable  .spots,  so  that  the  troops 
who  are  moving  to  the  front  may  face  the  enemy  in  the  best  possible 
condition.  Concentrate  bodies  of  mounted  police,  so  that  they  may 
move  down  on  any  threatened  point  in  force  and  crush  disturbance 
at  the  outset.  Remove  all  Hindustanis  from  posts  of  trust  or  im- 
portance. Arrest  every  wandering  Fakir,  guard  every  ferry,  ex- 
amine every  Sepoy's  letter.  Keep  the  regular  work  of  the  admin- 
istration going  everywhere.  If  you  are  calm  yourself  you  will  help 
others  to  be  calm  also.  Don't  be  afraid  of  acting  on  your  own  re- 
sponsibility, but  keep  me  informed  of  anything  and  everything  that 
happens,  and  of  anything  and  everything  that  you  do.  Such,  in 
bare  outline,  are  the  general  maxims  which  run  through  all  Sir  Johii 
Lawrence's  letters  to  all  his  subordinates  throughout  his  province 
during  these  first  days  of  the  Mutiny. 

Accordingly,  in  obedience  to  his  fiat,  and  in  some  cases — notably 
at  Peshawur  and  Lahore — in  anticipation  of  it,  every  official  in  the 
Punjab  was  on  the  alert,  and  acting  as  if  the  safety  of  the  whole 
province  depended  on  his  single  exertions. 

No  thought  of  flight, 
None  of  retreat,  no  unbecoming  deed 
That  argued  fear  ;  each  on  himself  relied, 
As  only  in  his  arm  the  moment  lay 

Of  victory. 

One  of  the  five  native  regiments  which  guarded,  or  endangered, 
Peshawur,  and  was  considered  to  be  the  most  tainted  of  them  all, 
had  been  broken  up  by  Cotton  and  Edwardes,  on  the  day  on  which 
the  news  of  the  Meerut  outbreak  reached  them,  into  detachments, 
and  sent  to  guard  the  solitary  frontier  posts  of  Michni,  Shubkudder, 
and  Abazai,  against  an  imaginary  invasion  of  the  Mohmunds  !  On 
the  same  day  the  suspected  55th,  which  was  quartered  at  Noushera, 


i857  MUTINY-POLICY   OF   JOHN   LAWRENCE.  39 

at  the  other  end  of  the  Peshawur  Valley,  and  might,  perhaps,  inter- 
cept free  communication  between  it  and  Attock,  was  sent  sixteen 
miles  northwards  to  Murdan  in  the  hills,  the  Headquarters  of  the 
famous  Guide  Corps.  At  once,  by  John  Lawrence's  directions,  that 
matchless  corps  marched  down  under  Daly  to  Noushera,  and,  with- 
out stopping  to  take  breath  there,  were  off  again  to  Attock,  and 
thence,  once  more — a  worthy  anticipation  of  General  Roberts's 
march  from  Cabul  to  Candahar — moved  on  again,  with  hardly  a 
pause,  in  their  amazing  race  for  Delhi.  At  once,  by  John  Law- 
rence's special  authorisation,  Edwardes  and  Nicholson,  his  veteran 
'  wardens  of  the  marches,'  utilising  their  local  influence  and  repu- 
tation, called  upon  the  wild  and  friendly  khans  of  the  Derajat, 
to  raise  a  thousand  Mooltani  horse  in  our  support.  At  once,  from 
all  points  of  the  northern  and  western  frontier,  regiments  of  Irregu- 
lars hurried  in  to  do  garrison  duty  in  the  posts  of  danger,  to  join 
the  Movable  Column,  or  to  prepare  for  an  ultimate  advance  on 
Delhi.  Such  was  the  ist  Punjab  Infantry  under  Coke,  whom  the 
unwearying  patience  and  forbearance  of  John  Lawrence  had  man- 
aged, in  spite  of  his  impracticability,  to  retain  at  Bunnoo  even  to 
this  day  of  trial  ;  such  the  2nd  Punjab  Infantry,  under  Green,  from 
Dera  Ghazi  Khan  ;  the  4th,  under  Wilde,  from  Bunnoo  ;  the  5  th 
under  Vaughan,  from  Kohat  ;  and  a  wing  of  the  2nd  Punjab  Cav- 
alry, under  Charles  Nicholson,  from  the  same  place.  From  the  cool 
retreat  of  Murri  in  the  extreme  north  came  down  the  Kumaon 
battalion  of  little  Ghoorkas,  while,  on  the  principle  of  compensation, 
the  39th  Regular  Infantry  at  Jhelum,  who  were  known  to  be  muti- 
nously disposed,  were,  with  admirable  judgment,  sent  out,  by  John 
Lawrence's  advice,  to  take  the  places  of  the  faithful  Irregulars  in 
the  lonely  and  distant  Derajat,  till,  amidst  the  burning  heat  and 
the  discomforts  of  the  march,  their  mutinous  spirit,  and  indeed,  all 
their  spirit,  seemed  to  melt  away  and  evaporate.  Once  more,  too, 
the  redoubtable  Futteh  Khan  Khuttuck  came  to  the  front  in  our 
defence,  and,  raising  a  hundred  Pathans,  helped  to  hold  for  us  the 
all-important  position  of  the  Attock  ferry. 

And  here  I  may  remark  that  it  was  fortunate  for  John  Lawrence 
himself,  and  fortunate  also  for  the  Punjab  and  for  India,  that  he 
happened,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Mutiny,  to  be,  not  at  Lahore  but 
at  Rawul  Pindi.  In  the  first  place,  the  heat  which  had  wrought 
such  havoc  with  his  constitution  in  recent  years,  and  had  all  but 
driven  him  to  England  in  this,  if  it  had  not  killed  him  outright, 
would  certainly  have  gravely  impaired  his  powers  of  work.  And, 
in  the   second  place,  if  he  had  been  at   the  headquarters  of  his 


40  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

Government,  a  thousand  petty  questions,  which,  in  the  admirable 
order  that  had  long  prevailed  in  his  province  and  was  not  seriously 
disturbed  even  now,  could  be  just  as  well  settled  by  his  subordi- 
nates as  by  himself  would,  inevitably,  have  been  referred  to  him 
direct.  A  hundred  official  forms  would  have  had  to  have  been 
observed,  and  many  hundreds  of  interviews  would  have  been  forced 
upon  him.  For  everyone  who  had  a  hobby  of  his  own — and  who, 
in  those  trying  days,  was  not  likely  to  have  many  hobbies  of  his 
own  ? — would  have  been  anxious  to  press  it  personally  on  his  chief. 
He  would  thus  have  been  overwhelmed  by  matters  of  detail,  and 
worry  would  have  taken  much  of  the  time  and  strength  which 
might  have  been  given  to  work.  From  all  this  his  absence  at 
Rawul  Pindi  happily  helped  to  save  him.  In  Montgomery,  in 
Macleod,  in  Macpherson,  in  Roberts,  at  Lahore  ;  in  Edwardes,  in 
Nicholson,  in  Cotton,  at  Peshawur,  he  had  admirable  lieutenants, 
men  with  whom  to  think  was  to  act,  to  see  a  danger  was  to  over- 
come it,  men  who  worked  behind  his  back  as  hard,  perhaps  harder, 
than  they  would  have  worked  under  his  eye  ;  while  from  Mont- 
gomery, in  particular,  he  received  every  second  day  a  report  which 
contained  the  pith  of  all  the  reports  sent  in  to  Lahore  from  all  the 
district  officers  of  the  eastern  part  of  the  Punjab. 

Nor  could  he,  by  any  possibility,  have  been  better  placed  than 
where  he  was.  Rawul  Pindi  was  on  the  Grand  Trunk  Road,  in  a 
position  which  gave  him  easy  access  alike  to  his  northern  and  to 
his  western  frontier.  The  telegraph  brought  him  into  instantaneous 
communication  with  the  important  position  of  Peshawur,  and  with 
the  master  spirits  who  were  at  work  under  him  there,,  while,  in 
other  directions,  he  could  flash  his  wishes,  his  suggestions,  or  his 
commands  to  Lahore,  to  Umballa,  to  Jullundur,  to  Kurnal,  to  the 
Ridge  before  Delhi,  and,  till  all  communication  was  cut  off,  per- 
haps happily  cut  off,  with  the  Supreme  Government,  to  Calcutta 
itself.  'I  like  issuing  orders  by  telegraph,' he  used  to  say,  'be- 
cause they  cannot  give  me  their  reasons,  nor  ask  me  for  mine.'  He 
was  thus  near  enough  to  every  point  of  importance,  without  being 
too  near  to  any  one  of  them.  He  was  freed  from  the  strife  of 
tongues,  and  from  that  multitude  of  counsellors  in  which,  if  Solo- 
mon could  always  find  wisdom,  even  Solomon  could  not  have 
found  the  energy,  the  vigour,  the  promptitude,  the  unity  of  action, 
which  the  crisis  required.  Freed  from  the  petty  worries  of  official 
life,  he  was  able  to  take  a  calmer,  a  wider,  and  a  truer  view  of  the 
struggle  as  a  whole,  than  those  who  were  in  the  thick  of  it.  With 
the  exception  of  his  *  acting '  private  secretary,  James,  and  of  Ed- 


» 


i857  MUTINY-POLICY   OF   JOHN   LAWRENCE.  4I 

ward  Thornton,  the  Commissioner  of  the  district,  who  used  to  look 
in  each  day  to  see  him,  and  has,  in  conversation,  given  me  a  vigor- 
ous description  of  his  energy,  his  cahnness,  and  his  heroism,  he 
was  quite  alone,  and,  perched  on  that  elevated  spot,  he  was  able. 

Like  falcon  from  her  cairn  on  high, 

to  take  a  bird's-eye  view  of  his  whole  province,  to  keep  it  all  within 
his  grasp,  and  to  look  beyond  it  again  to  Bombay  and  Delhi,  to 
Cabul  and  to  Calcutta,  to  the  Persian  war  that  was  just  over,  and  to 
the  Chinese  war  that  was  just  beginning,  and  to  estimate  the  in- 
fluence which  each  might  be  made  to  bear  upon  the  whole.  He 
knew  the  idiosyncrasies  of  each  among  his  subordinates,  the 
dyspeptic,  the  sanguine,  the  cautious,  the  melancholic,  the  mer- 
curial, the  saturnine,  and  so  was  able  to  rate  the  reports  they  sent 
on  to  him  at  exactly  their  proper  value.  He  knew  how  to  admin- 
ister a  word  of  encouragement  or  a  word  of  caution  ;  how,  where 
the  occasion  called  for  it,  to  pour  forth  a  flood  of  generous  and 
unstinted  praise  ;  and  how  again,  though  this  was  rare  with  such 
officers  as  he  had  gathered  round  him,  to  deal  a  sledge-hammer 
rebuke.  He  was  too  wise — to  adopt  a  metaphor  of  which  he  was 
fond — not  to  give  'his  horses  their  head.'  But  even  the  best  of 
them  felt  that  the  coachman  was  always  on  the  coach-box,  that  his 
finger  was  always  on  the  reins,  and  that  his  eye  was  always  looking 
ahead  for  dangers  on  the  road,  which  they  with  their  blinkers  on — 
immersed  that  is,  in  the  multitudinous  cares  of  their  immediate 
province — could  not  possibly  see  as  well  as  he.  They  felt  it,  and 
they  were  glad  of  it.  For  they  felt  that  he  had  the  best  of  rights  to 
rule  ;  that  if  he  made  too  little  allowance  for  personal  or  private 
weaknesses,  it  was  only  because  of  his  overflowing  zeal  for  the 
public  good  ;  that  if  he  plied  them,  when  they  were  weary,  with 
whips,  he  lashed  himself  with  scorpions  ;  that  if  he  never  spared 
them,  still  less  did  he  ever  spare  himself. 

How  he  worked  and  how  he  planned,  what  wide  views  he  took, 
is  known,  in  a  measure,  to  all  who  worked  under  him,  and  to  all 
who  have  ever  studied  the  history  of  the  Indian  Mutiny.  But, 
perhaps,  few  can  know  it  so  well  as  his  biographer,  who  has  had  to 
follow  him,  day  by  day  and  almost  hour  by  hour,  through  the  enor- 
mous piles  of  documents  which  every  corner  of  his  province  poured 
in  upon  him,  and  which  he  poured  back,  with  interest,  on  every 
corner  of  his  province.  Each  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  subordinates 
knows,  of  course  better  than  anyone  else  can  do,  how  his  chief 
dealt  with  him  individually.     But  no   one  who  has   not  had  the 


42  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

opportunity,  which  has  fallen  to  my  lot,  of  studying  the  corre- 
spondence as  a  whole,  can  know  so  well  how  he  dealt  with  them 
collectively,  how  he  held  every  thread  within  his  hand,  how  he 
swept  with  his  eye  the  petty  process  of  raising  a  dozen  sowars  in 
the  Derajat  as  keenly  as  through  his  correspondence  with  Barnard, 
and  Reed,  and  Wilson,  with  Greathed  and  Norman,  with  Chamber- 
lain and  Nicholson,  he  was  able  to  follow,  and,  in  a  sense,  to  influ- 
ence or  direct  every  step  of  the  great  drama  which  was  slowly  and 
painfully  unfolding  itself  upon  the  ridge  before  Delhi. 

When  the  news  of  the  outbreak  first  reached  Sir  John,  Lady 
Lawrence  was  at  his  side.  But  a  few  days  later  she  was  obliged, 
sorely  against  her  will,  to  go  on  to  Murri  with  her  children,  leaving 
him  to  face  what  he  and  she  at  once  instinctively  felt  would  be  the 
greatest  crisis  of  his  life,  alone.  A  line  or  two  of  hers  giving  her 
recollections  of  these  few  eventful  days  will  be  read  with  interest. 

As  to  his  private  affairs,  my  husband's  first  act  was  to  write  to  his 
brother-in-law,  Dr.  Bernard,  and  give  all  the  necessary  directions  re- 
garding his  children,  and  the  slender  provision  which  we  had,  up  to  that 
time,  been  able  to  make  for  them.  He  saw  and  felt  the  possibility  that 
neither  of  us  would  be  spared  to  return  home.  But  he  never  for  a 
moment  lost  heart.  He  only  '  put  his  house  in  order,'  so  as  to  be  ready 
for  whatever  might  happen.  After  that  he  gave  himself  up  entirely  to 
his  work  and  left  all  care  for  his  private  affairs  alone.  What  he  did  and 
how  he  worked  is  well  known,  and  how  mercifully  he  was  kept  in  health 
and  strength.  All  the  neuralgia  disappeared  in  the  excitement,  and 
night  and  day  he  was  equal  to  all  demands.  What  kept  him  well  at 
this  time  was,  I  believe,  above  all  else,  his  power  of  sleeping.  When 
telegrams  came  at  night  he  would  get  up,  do  what  he  could  at-the  time, 
and  then  was  able  to  sleep  soundly  till  some  other  call  aroused  him. 
All  the  current  work  was  kept  going,  in  addition  to  the  demands  made 
on  him  by  the  Mutiny.  I  was  obliged  to  go  up  to  Murri  with  our  chil- 
dren, while  he  remained  for  two  months  at  Rawul  Pindi,  and  then  went 
down  to  Lahore.  It  was  an  awful  time  of  suspense.  For  my  own  part, 
I  could  only  feel  how  thankful  I  was  that  I  had  not  gone  home  to  Eng- 
land, for,  although  we  were  parted,  we  had  constant  communication. 
He  managed  to  write  a  few  lines  to  me  every  day,  and  I  knew,  somehow 
or.  other,  if  it  had  been  necessary,  that  I  should  find  my  way  to  him. 

It  is  true  enough,  as  Lady  Lawrence  remarks  here,  that,  in  the 
excitement  of  the  moment  and  the  first  rush  of  work,  all  the  neu- 
ralgia did  disappear.  But  it  is  equally  true  that  after  her  departure, 
as  some  letfers  written,  not  to  her  but  to  his  intimate  friends,  show, 
there  was  a  terrible  reaction.  The  neuralgia  returned,  and  much 
of  his  very  best  and  hardest  work  was  done  while  be  was  writhing 


i8S7  MUTLNY-POLICY   OF   JOHN    LAWRENCE.  43 

under  it  !  One  person  still  living,  Edward  Thornton,  the  Com- 
missioner of  the  Ravvul  Pindi  Division,  saw  much  of  John  Lawrence 
during  this  eventful  time,  and  I  am  able,  from  a  suggestive  conversa- 
tion with  him,  to  recall  a  characteristic  touch  or  two  respecting  it. 
And  I  would  remark  first  by  anticipation,  that  Thornton  was  not, 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  brought  up  in  'the  school'  of 
John  Lawrence.  He  never  'sat  at  his  feet.'  He  was  his  equal  in 
age  ;  and  at  Haileybury,  and  in  his  earlier  life  in  India,  was  his 
equal  also  in  promise  and  in  performance.  What  he  says  therefore 
is  spoken,  not  with  the  enthusiastic  and,  perhaps,  over-strained  zeal 
of  a  disciple,  but  with  the  cool  and  deliberate  appreciation  of  a 
contemporary  who  had  been  distanced  by  him. 

John  Lawrence's  was  not  (he  said  to  me  in  conversation)  a  very  origi- 
nating mind.  In  the  Mutiny  it  was  not  his  place,  except  on  rare  occa- 
sions, to  originate.  It  was  to  receive  suggestions  from  all  quarters,  to 
ponder  over  them,  to  assimilate  them,  and  then  to  decide.  His,  in  fact, 
was  the  mittd  throughout.  He  had  to  keep  some  people,  like  Edwardes 
and  Nicholson,  back— to  put  the  drag  on;  others,  like  Anson,  or  Bar- 
nard, or  Wilson,  to  make  to  go  faster — to  keep  them  up  to  the  mark.  It 
was  he  who  avoided  mistakes  and  prevented  other  people  making  them. 
He  would  listen  to,  and,  apparently,  be  influenced  by  all  arguments 
brought  to  bear  on  him,  often  by  shrewder  or  more  ready  men  than 
himself,  but  he  always  brought  them  back  at  last  to  the  test  of  his  own 
admirable  common  sense.  I  was  not  at  all  prejudiced  in  his  favour  to 
start  with,  or  even  at  the  time.  But,  looking  back  now  on  all  that  hap- 
pened, I  can  see  clearly  that  it  is  he  and  none  of  his  subordinates  who 
can  be  said  to  have  saved  the  Punjab. 

There  were  all  the  ways  of  a  brave  man  about  him.  He  would  sit  out- 
side of  his  house  with  James  and  me,  discussing  matters  with  perfect 
calmness,  and  when  quite  worn  out  with  fatigue  he  would  throw  his 
huge  burly  body  on  his  bed  just  inside  the  door,  and  continue  the  con- 
versation i'rom  thence.  At  first  he  had  no  guard  at  all,  and  it  was  only 
the  strong  representations  of  the  Council  of  War,  composed  of  Reed, 
Edwardes,  and  Chamberlain,  which  had  assembled  at  his  house,  that 
could  induce  him  to  post  so  much  as  a  single  sentry  near  it.  And  even 
then  I  noticed  that  the  guard  was  placed  in  such  a  position  on  one  side 
of  the  house  that  there  would  have  been  no  sort  of  difficulty  in  an  assassin 
entering  by  the  other  and  making  short  work  of  him  as  he  lay  asleep 
upon  his  bed. 

John  Lawrence,  I  would  remark  here,  had  shown  himself,  from 
his  earliest  days,  to  be  quite  above  any  feeling  of  physical  fear.  On 
one  occasion,  during  the  second  Sikh  war,  when  insurrection  Avas 
rife  all  around,  he  was  sleeping  in  a  lonely  station,  after  a  hard 
day's  work,  the  sleep  of  the  just  and  the  fearless.     At  dead  of  night 


44  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

there  was  an  alarm,  and  one  of  his  assistants  came  in,  pale  with 
terror,  and  exclaimed  in  an  excited  tone,  *Do  you  know  that  we 
are  in  a  cul-dc-sacl '  *  Hang  the  cul-de-sac,'  replied  the  awakened 
and  intrepid  sleeper,  and  turned  over  in  his  bed  and  had  the  rest  of 
his  sleep  out. 

I  came  in  one  clay  (continued  Edward  Thornton)  when  thinf^s  seemed 
to  be  about  as  hopeless  as  it  was  possible  for  them  to  do,  and  lound  him 
sitting  alone  with  his  papers  before  him,  his  coat  and  waistcoat  thrown 
off,  his  neck  and  arms  bare,  his  head  thrown  back,  looking  the  picture* 
as  I  thought,  of  firmness  and  resolution.  '  I  think  there  is  a  chance, 
Thornton,'  lie  said  to  me,  and,  as  he  said  it,  I  thought  he  looked  the  man 
to  make  it  so.  If  he  died,  I  felt  that  he  would  die  hard  ;  and  if  our  lives 
were  saved,  I  felt  then  and  I  feel  still,  that  it  was  to  him  we  should  owe 
and  have  owed  them.  I  saw  him  during  the  first  two  months  of  the 
Mutiny  on  every  day  but  one.  On  that  day  I  went,  as  usual,  to  his  house 
and  found  him  gone.  He  had  actually  slipped  off  to  see  his  wife  at 
Murri  !  It  was  a  flagrant  escapade.  He  had  no  excuse.  But  he 
couldn't  help  it.  He  travelled  up  as  fast  as  he  could  go,  saw  his  wife 
for  a  brief  interval,  assured  himself  of  her  well-being,  and  was  back  again 
at  his  work  within  twenty-four  hours. 

A  pleasant  touch  of  human  nature  ;  some  may  think  it  of  human 
weakness,  this  !  But,  in  any  case,  it  is  one  of  which  I  should  have 
been  sorry  not  to  have  heard,  and  should  be  still  more  sorry,  having 
heard,  not  to  have  recorded.  It  is  not  merely  that  it  is  an  oasis  in 
the  desert,  a  refreshing  interlude  in  the  din  of  arms,  the  mustering 
and  the  moving  of  troops,  and  the  multitudinous  cares  of  govern- 
ment, but  it,  surely,  makes  us  appreciate  the  man  not  less  but  more, 
when  we  find  that  there  was  one  weak  point  in  the  spear-proof 
armour  even  of  '  Iron  John.' 

All  other  claims,  such  as  men  cast  in  a  less  heroic  mould  might 
be  disposed,  at  times,  to  make  much  of — the  claims  of  family  or 
friends,  of  comfort  or  recreation,  of  health  or  wealth — John  Law- 
rence habitually  and  rigorously  subordinated  to  his  public  duty. 
They  were  as  nothing  in  his  eyes  compared  to  it.  There  was  one 
being  and  only  one  in  the  world  whose  claims  upon  him  he  would 
have  allowed  to  weigh  for  a  moment  against  those  of  the  public 
service.  To  her  wants,  even  when  he  was  at  his  busiest,  he  always 
found  time  to  attend.  It  was  a  happy  anomaly,  a  heaven-sent 
weakness  in  that  heart  of  oak  and  triple  brass,  for  which  few  will 
think  him  to  be  less  and  many  may  think  him  to  be  even  a  greater 
man.  It  was  the  sentiment,  the  romance,  the  poetry  of  his  hard, 
unresting,  toilful  life.     It  was  more  than  this.     It  was  the  under- 


1 857  MUTINY-POLICY    OF   JOHxN    LAWRENCE.  45 

current  of  the  whole  of  his  life,  even  though  it  is  possible  to  catch, 
only  at  fitful  intervals,  the  echoes  of  its  undersong.  One  of  the 
great  rivers  of  Spain  plunges  at  a  certain  point  in  its  course  into  the 
ground  and  flows  beneath  it  for  nearly  thirty  miles.  But  at  uncer- 
tain intervals  it  throws  up  pools  to  the  surface  which  the  natives  with 
unconscious  poetry  call  '' los  ojos  del  Guadiana,''  the  eyes  of  the 
Guadiana.  They  are  only  pools,  but  they  are  sure  and  certain 
signs  that  the  majestic  river  is  flowing  on  in  uninterrupted  course 
below.  So  was  it  with  John  Lawrence,  and  on  such  bubblings  up 
to  the  surface  of  the  undercurrent  of  his  life  and  his  domestic  hap- 
piness I  may  be  allowed  to  dwell  from  time  to  time,  and  without 
tearing  aside  the  veil  or  revealing  aught  that  by  being  revealed  loses 
half  its  beauty,  to  point  out  what  they  imply. 

One  such  incident,  unique  in  its  neatness  and  its  unconscious 
beauty,  I  have  related  by  anticipation  in  the  first  volume  of  this 
biography.'  Another  more  commonplace  but  still  characteristic 
anecdote  may  find  a  place  here.  One  day  John  Lawrence  was 
discussing  with  one  of  the  ablest  of  his  subordinates  the  question 
whether  a  settlement  officer  could  do  the  work  of  his  settlement 
better  if  he  were  married  or  unmarried.  John  Lawrence  thought 
that  the  unmarried  man  could  do  it  best.  His  subordinate  thought 
the  married,  and  endeavoured  to  clench  his  view  of  the  matter  by 
saying,  '  You  know  you  have  often  told  me  that  no  one  could  do 
the  heavy  work  of  tne  settlement  better  than  I  have  done.'  'Ah,' 
replied  his  chief,  '  but  then  you  are  such  a  bad  husband  !  He 
meant  that  his  lieutenant  was  so  absorbed  in  his  work  that  he  could 
not  give  the  time  and  attention  to  his  wife  which  every  husband 
ought  to  give  her.  Here  was  John  Lawrence's  theory  and  practice 
combined.  The  '  flagrant  escapade '  to  Murri  which  I  have  just 
described  is  another  '  eye  of  the  Guadiana,'  and  not  the  least  char- 
acteristic of  the  three.  The  man  who,  in  later  years,  looking  back 
on  his  past  life  could  say  with  truth  that  he  had  married  his  wife 
because  *  he  could  not  be  happy  for  five  minutes  without  her,'  might 
well  be  excused  if,  during  the  long  agony  of  the  Mutiny,  he  snatched 
one  breathing  space  of  a  few  hours  which  would  give  him  fresh 
strength  for  the  present  and  fresh  hope  for  the  future.  He  gave 
in  but  once  to  the  yearnings  of  his  heart  because,  as  Chief  Com- 
missioner of  the  Punjab,  he  was  primarily  responsible  for  its  safety, 
and  because  he  was  working  to  that  end  as  few  men  have  ever 
worked.     He  did  give  in  that  once,  because,  with  all  his  external 

^\o\.   i.   p.  128. 


46  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

roughness  and  all  his  absolute  devotion  to  his  public  duties,  he  was 
a  true  and  tender-hearted  man. 

But  it  is  time  I  should  justify  what  I  have  said  as  to  the  multi- 
plicity of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  labours,  his  energy,  his  enthusiasm, 
his  prudence,  by  such  evidence  as  a  few  meagre  extracts  from  his 
letters  written  during  the  early  weeks  of  the  Mutiny  can  give. 
They  must  be  taken  as  samples,  and  they  are  samples  of  the  whole. 
And  first  let  us  notice  his  caution. 

To  Montgomery,  who  was  practically  his  '  locum  ienens '  at  La- 
hore, he  writes,  May  15  : — 

Farrington  should  not  authorise  the  Raja  of  Kupurthulla  to  raise  men. 
I  telegraphed  this  to  him  some  days  ago,  but  he  may  not  have  received 
the  message.  I  think  tiiere  may  be  as  much  danger  from  his  levies  as 
from  others. 

I  have  sent  a  message  to  Macpherson  to  arrange  with  you  to  relieve 
the  police  horse  and  poHce  battalion  men  as  much  as  possible,  substituting 
Burkandasc  in  their  room,  raising  men  for  the  purpose.  But  arrange 
so  as  to  mix  old  and  new  men  as  far  as  possible,  and  keep  at  the  jails  a 
small  body  of  military  police  as  a  rallying  point.  The  object,  of  course, 
is  to  have  the  mounted  and  battalion  policemen  ready  for  rows  or  emer- 
gency of  any  kind.  Entertain  as  many  men  as  are  really  necessary ,  but 
no  more.    We  must  husband  our  resources.    Money  may  become  scarce. 

He  writes  to  Montgomery  again  on  May  i3f  suggesting  another 
caution  which  was,  perhaps,  still  more  essential  in  this  early  stage 
of  the  Mutiny. 

I  was  very  ill  nearly  all  day  yesterday,  but  got  off  various  messages. 
I  do  not  like  to  raise  large  bodies  of  the  old  Sikhs.  I  recollect  their 
strong  nationality,  howcompletely  they  were  demoralised  for  some  twelve 
years  before  annexation,  and  how  much  they  have  to  gain  by  our  ruin. 
I  will  not  therefore  consent  to  raise  levies  of  the  old  Sikhs.  There  is  a 
strong  feeling  of  sympathy  between  Silvhs  and  Hindus,  and  though  I  am 
willing  to  raise  Sikhs  gradually  and  carefully,  I  wish  to  see  them  mixed 
with  Mohammedans  and  hillmen.  I  would  not,  in  any  case,  raise  more 
men  than  are  absolutely  necessary  ;  for  if  a  blow  is  not  soon  struck,  we 
may  have  all  the  natives  against  us,  and  nothing  but  our  Europeans  to 
rely  on.  We  are  raising  a  thousand  Mooltan  horse  in  the  Derajat,  be- 
sides levies  in  Huzara  and  Dera  Ghazi  Khan,  and  four  companies  for 
each  of  the  eighteen  regiments  of  Punjab  infantry  and  police  battalions. 
All  these  will  give  full  10,000  men.  Cortlandt  is  raising  also  one  thousand 
men  for  service  at  Ferozepore.  Long  before  all  these  are  ready,  if  ab- 
solutely necessary,  we  can  raise  more.  But  we  should  do  our  best  to 
get  either  tried  and  loyal  men,  or,  at  any  rate,  young  fellows  not  imbued 
with  the  ancient  leaven. 


i857  MUTINY-POLICY    OF   JOHN    LAWRENCE.  47 

I  may  add  here  that  experience  soon  convinced  John  Lawrence 
that  even  the  old  Sikhs  of  the  Mahva  might  be  trusted,  and,  once 
convinced  of  this,  he  employed  them  with  a  right  good  will  and 
with  the  best  results. 

Next  let  us  notice  his  care  for  the  well-being  of  all  classes  com- 
mitted to  his  charge,  as  evidenced  by  the  minute  directions  he 
gives  concerning  them. 

To  Monckton,  Deputy  Commissioner  at  Sealkote,  May  19  : 

The  larger  portion  of  the  troops  at  Sealkote  have  been  ordered  to 
Wuzeerabad  to  join  the  Movable  Column.  All  the  European  families 
are  to  go  into  Lahore,  or  so  far  6n  the  way  until  they  meet  a  similar 
party  from  Lahore.  If  you  want  carriage,  get  aid  fromGujranwalla  and 
Lahore.  The  Deputy  Commissioner  of  Lahore  will  be  told  to  send  you 
as  many  good  carts  and  one-horsed  '  ekkas '  as  he  can  collect.  The 
more  ladies  that  can  go  into  Lahore  the  better.  There  they  will  be  safe 
and  free  from  alarm. 

To  Ousely,  Deputy  Commissioner  at  Shahpore,  May  20  : 

We  hear  that  Coke  was  not  to  leave  Bunnoo  before  the  19th,  yester- 
day ;  so  you  will  have  ample  time  to  catch  him  at  Esau  Khail.  Collect 
as  many  camels  as  may  appear  necessary,  not  less  than  400  for  each 
regiment  (Coke's  and  Wilde's)  and  either  have  them  ready  at  Shahpore 
or  send  them  to  meet  the  corps.  Perhaps  the  best  plan  will  be  to  send 
one  hundred  or  so  tc^  meet  each  regiment,  and  keep  the  rest  ready  at 
Shahpore.  These  camels  are  for  the  men  to  ride  upon,  and  so  enable  the 
regiments  to  push  on  by  double  marches.  Pray  look  to  this,  and  do  not 
fail  to  have  the  camels.  We  cannot  foresee  how  much  may  depend  on 
these  arrangements. 

To  Montgomery,  May  21  : — 

All  well  here,  but  I  doubt  if  the  Commander-in-Chief  will  do  any 
good.  All  those  about  him  are  wretched  pottering  fellows,  except  Nor- 
man. It  would  not  do  to  offer  him  Edwardes,  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  he 
is  wanted  where  he  is.  If  anything  happened  to  Nicholson  at  Peshawur 
the  Brigadier  there  would  be  without  a  guide.  I  have,  however,  offered 
the  Commander-in-Chief  any  officer  he  may  like,  and  of  course,  if  he 
selects  Edwardes,  he  shall  go.  Collect  lots  of  camels  at  Lahore  ;  Sirdar 
Khan  of  Mojang  and  others  can  procure  them.  We  are  sending  on  the 
Guides,  4th  Sikhs,  Coke's  and  W^ilde's  regiments,  all  on  camels,  two  men 
on  each,  so  as  to  bring  them  up  to  the  scratch  as  fresh  as  possible.  The 
Commander-in-Chief  also,  perhaps,  may  require  some  carriage.  What- 
ever is  entertained  have  regularly  paid.  Guides  will  be  at  Jhelum  to- 
morrow. Lieutenant  C.  Nicholson,  with  a  hundred  and  ninety  sabres  of 
the  2nd  Punjab  Cavalry,  beiiind  them  one  day.     Rothney's  corps  comes 


48  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

in    on    the  22nd.     Coke's   and   Wilde's  move  on  Sliahpore  straight  to 
Lahore,     My  lace  is  terribly  bad,  but  I  work  as  well  as  I  can. 

And  then  follows  the  gush  of  praise  to  Montgomery  and  his  co- 
adjutors at  Lahore  which  I  have  already  quoted. 

To  Lord  Elphinstone,  Governor  of  Bombay,  May  21  : — 

We  are  all  well  in  this  quarter,  but  nothing  has,  as  yet,  been  done  to 
check  the  insurrection.  The  Commander-in-Chief  has  not  yet  moved 
from  Umballa  on  Meerut  or  Delhi,  and  the  troops  at  the  former  place 
seem  paralysed.  We  are  pouring  down  Irregulars  from  the  frontier  to- 
wards Lahore,  to  push  on  and  assist  the  Commander-in-Chief  in  his  for- 
ward movement  to  relieve  Meerut,  recover  Delhi,  or  succour  Agra  and 
the  North-West.  If  the  Irregular  troops  remain  staunch  all  will  go 
well.  The  danger  is  that  if  we  delay  they  may  fall  away,  and  the 
European  troops,  worn  down  by  the  climate,  be  destroyed  gradually. 
We  shall  hold  Peshawur  as  long  as  possible,  and  then  concentrate  on 
Lahore.  We  are  still  retaining  our  hold  throughout  the  country,  and 
the  people  are  loyal  and  obedient.  Please,  as  a  precautionary  measure, 
have  money  ready  at  Kurrachi  for  us.  Steamers  on  the  Indus  would 
prove  very  useful,  and  enable  us  to  hold  Mooltan. 

To  Major  Marsden,  Deputy  Commissioner  at  Ferozepore,  where 
John  Lawrence,  rightly  or  wrongly,  thought  that  there  had  been 
some  bungling  by  the  miUtary  authorities,  and  where  there,  cer- 
tainly, was  much  bungling  a  little  later  on,  he  wrote  as  follows  : — 

May  22. 
I  was  glad  to  hear  of  your  exertions  at  Ferozepore.  Had  the  maga- 
zine been  taken  it  would  have  proved  a  most  disastrous  blow  to  us.  All 
I  regret  is  that  so  few  of  the  mutineers  were  killed,  so  little  example 
made.  To  think  that  they  attack  our  magazine,  burn  our  church  and 
bungalows,  and  then  get  clear  off,  seems  to  me  very  lamentable.  I  would 
have  opened  on  them  with  grape,  and  done  everything  in  my  power  to 
destroy  as  many  as  possible.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  make  an  ex- 
ample. I  trust  that  nothing  will  tempt  the  Brigadier  to  trust  a  man  of 
them. 

To  Major  Hamilton,  Commissioner  at  Mooltan,  the  one  link  of 
communication  which  remained  open  between  the  Punjab  and  the 
outer  world,  and  a  place  where  there  were  only  sixty  European 
artillerymen  to  keep  in  check  3,500  natives,  many  of  whom  were 
indubitably  tainted,  he  writes  as  follows.  It  was  obvious  that  force 
could  do  little,  with  such  odds  against  us,  but  tact,  and  prudence, 
and  precaution  might  do  much. 

May  22. 

The  civil  and  military  authorities  have  done  well   at  Mooltan.     Pray 


i857  MUTINY-POLICY    OF    JOHN    LAWRENCE.  49 

do  not  relax  in  any  of  your  precautions,  and  do  not  trust  the  Regular  in- 
fantry. Make  every  effort  to  put  the  old  fort  into  as  defensible  a  stale 
as  possible.  Throw  up  breastworks  and  cover  so  as  to  enable  a  few 
stout  soldiers  to  resist  many.  Arrange  for  temporary  cover  there.  At 
the  first  alarm  get  in  all  the  ladies,  women,  and  children.  Any  levies 
you  may  deem  necessary,  any  promises  you  may  make,  any  rewards  you 
may  grant,  I  will  support.  Any  expenditure  which  Lieutenant  Rose 
may  make  by  your  authority  will  be  allowed.  We  have  ordered  the  ist 
Punjab  Cavalry  and  2nd  Punjab  Infantry  over  from  Asni  andDeraGhazi 
Khan  to  Mooltan.  If  all  is  quiet  when  they  arrive  we  propose  that  the 
Punjab  cavalry  come  on  to  Ferozepore  to  reinforce  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  at  Kurnal.  A  European  corps  of  infantry  has  been  ordered  up 
from  Kurrachi  to  Mooltan  ;  try  and  arrange  for  some  kind  of  cover  for 
them.  We  inust  hold  Mooltan  to  the  last.  Five  regiments  of  European 
infantry  concentrating  from  Madras  on  Calcutta  ! 

If  the  native  infantry  break  out  I  hope  you  will  do  your  best  to  destroy 
them,  and,  if  they  disperse,  the  country  people  should  be  urged  to  follow 
them  and  plunder  them,  and,  if  they  resist,  destroy  them.  Their  arms 
should  be  brought  in  and  the  plunder  go  to  the  captors. 

Such  a  letter  from  John  Lawrence  was  like  an  electric  shock. 
By  extraordinary  skill  and  energy  on  the  part  of  the  authorities  the 
outbreak  at  Mooltan  was  warded  off  from  day  to  day,  till  at  last, 
when  the  rising  at  JuUundur  made  a  similar  rising  at  Mooltan  to  be 
a  matter  of  certainty,  John  Lawrence,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter, 
determined  to  run  what  he  deemed  to  be  the  lesser  risk.  A  positive 
order  went  forth  that  the  disarmament  should  be  attempted,  and, 
with  an  extraordinary  mixture  of  audacity  and  skill,  it  was  not  only 
attempted  but  accomplished,  and  that  without  shedding  a  drop  of 
blood,  by  Major  Crawford  Chamberlain  whom  the  Chief  Com- 
missioner had  selected  for  the  dangerous  honour. 

A  short  letter  to  Barnes  indicates  the  policy  towards  the  pro- 
tected  Sikh   chieftains,   great   and  small,  of  the  Cis-Sutlej   States 

which  had  already  produced  such  good  results. 

May  23. 

Borrow  as  much  money  as  you  require  from  Nabha  and  Puttiala, 
Urge  on  the  Commander-in-Chief  to  have  a  military  commission  to  try 
and  hang  the  men  of  the  45th  N.  I.,  who  have  been  boned.  It  will  have 
a  good  effect.  Men  caught  red-handed  in  the  perpetration  of  murder 
and  attempt  at  murder  should  be  shot.  We  are  all  well  in  spite  of  the 
chiefs  being  against  us  at  Peshawur.  We  are  raising  men  and  holding 
the  country,  coercing  and  overawing  the  Regular  troops.  Any  reason- 
able promises  you  may  make  to  chiefs  and  influential  men  I  will  support.. 

The  following  to  Montgomery  indicates  Sir  John  Lawrence's 
opinion  of  the  redoubtable  Hodson,  who  was  just  then  coming  to 

VOL.  II.— 4 


50  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

the  front  again,  and  shows  that  he  could  be  stern  and  thorough- 
going enough  with  the  mutineers  when  severity  was  needed.  It  is 
all  the  more  desirable  to  lay  stress  on  this  now,  as  I  hope  to  show 
hereafter  that,  unlike  many  of  his  countrymen,  he  was  prepared  to 
temper  justice  with  mercy  the  moment  that  it  was  possible  to  do 
so.  He  was  never  reckless  of  human  life  ;  he  struck  that  he  might 
save  and  only  that  he  might  save  ;  and  he  protested  with  all  the 
energy  of  his  nature  against  promiscuous  bloodshed,  and  against 
that  indiscriminate  vengeance  which  was  the  order  of  the  day  at 
Delhi  for  so  many  months  after  it  had  fallen  into  our  hands,  and 

when  all  resistance  was  at  an  end. 

May  23. 

My  dear  Robert, — Pray  resist  all  reaction,  all  returns  of  tenderness 
and  sympathy  for  the  mutineers.  It  is  true  that  they  have  failed  in  their 
attempts  to  ruin  us,  but  this  is  no  cause  for  our  making-  fools  of  our- 
selves, and  beginning  to  think  that  they  have  been  sinned  against.  I 
feel  no  confidence  whatever  in  the  native  Regulars,  but  I  see  no  objec- 
tion to  our  taking  a  few  of  those  who  have  not  committed  themselves 
with  the  Movable  Force — guns  and  Europeans  being  told  off  to  destroy 
them  on  the  first  sign  of  disobedience.  I  hope  and  believe  that  good 
will  arise  out  of  all  the  evil  which  has  occurred.  But  if  our  officers  al- 
ready begin  to  sympathise  with  these  scoundrels  I  shall  despair  of  any 
reform. 

Hodson  is  an  officer  of  tried  courage  and  great  capacity,  but  a  inau- 
vais  sujet  after  all.  I  am  glad  we  are  not  to  have  him.  Help  him  by 
all  means,  but  too  many  men  raised  by  an  influential  man,  if  for  perma- 
nent service,  are  not  good.  If,  only  for  the  nonce,  it  does  no  harm.  My 
reason  for  not  advocating  taking  men  for  permanent  service  from  chiefs 
is  this  ;  they  will  certainly  stick  in  a  good  many  rips.  If  these  are  al- 
lowed to  remain,  the  ressalah  (troop  of  horse)  is  inefficient  ;  if  turned 
out,  the  chief  is  aggrieved.  I  am  glad  you  gave  the  telegraph-men  a 
month's  pay  ;  they  have  deserved  it  well. 

The  letters  I  have  just  quoted  will  give  some  idea  of  the  multi- 
plicity of  details  and  of  the  minute  local  and  personal  peculiarities 
which  John  Lawrence  had  to  keep  in  mind  throughout.  I  have 
selected  them  for  this  purpose,  rather  than  because  of  their  intrinsic 
interest  or  importance,  and  it  will  be  observed  that  I  have  taken 
them  all  from  the  correspondence  of  the  first  fortnight  of  the 
Mutiny. 

The  following  extract  from  a  letter  which  was  written  to  Lord 
Canning  at  the  close  of  that  first  fortnight,  and  contained  a  mas- 
terly review  of  the  progress  of  the  Mutiny  and  of  his  measures  for 
its  suppression,  will  show  that  he  never  allowed  himself  to  be  lost 
in  the  details  of  his  work,  but  that  he  was  able,  thus  early,  to  look 


I8S7  MUTINY-POLICY    OF   JOHN    LAWRENCE.  5 1 

forward   to  the  measures  which  would  render  a  pacification  not 

only  possible  but  durable. 

May  23. 

My  Lord, — Your  Lordship  will,  no  doubt,  have  received  all  the  news 
from  this  quarter.  I  asked  Mr.  Barnes,  the  Commissioner  of  the  Cis- 
Sutlej  Division,  to  send  on  all  the  information  which  might  appear  de- 
sirable. I  believe,  with  God's  help,  we  shall  do  well,  hold  our  own,  and 
be  able  to  reinforce  the  Commander-in-Chief  The  great  point  is  that 
he  should  advance  on  Meerut,  extricate  the  force  there,  and  enable  them 
to  act.^  He  will  then  be  in  a  position  either  to  move  on  Delhi  or  down 
the  Doab  towards  Agra,  as  circumstances  may  dictate.     .     .     . 

We  must  continue  anxious  as  long  as  Delhi  holds  out  and  the  insur- 
rection about  Meerut  is  not  put  down.  So  long  as  the  Irregulars  remain 
loyal,  all  must  go  well  ;  but  if  they  turn  against  us  we  shall  have  a 
difficult  game,  and  shall  then  have  to  abandon  the  frontier  and  concen- 
trate our  European  force.  But  even  then,  I  think,  we  shall  be  able  to 
hold  our  own  until  the  cold  weather.  Some  natives  will  always  remain 
true  to  a  compact  body  of  Europeans  who  show  a  firm  front.  The  Ir- 
regulars are  behaving  admirably  at  present  ;  the  only  danger  which  I 
foresee  is  that  which  may  arise  from  their  seeing  us  stand  on  the  defen- 
sive.    The  country  also  is  with  us,  and  the  people  behaving  loyally. 

Edwardes  and  Nicholson  are  raising  new  levies,  and,  on  the  whole, 
I  think  we  shall  be  able  to  hold  Peshawur,  even  if  all  the  native  infantry 
revolt.  At  this  place  (Rawul  Pindi)  we  have  200  European  infantry, 
mostly  weak  men,  but  able  to  fight,  and  a  troop  of  capital  European 
artillery.  We  have  also  one  regiment  of  native  infantry  who  have 
hitherto  behaved  well,  and  whom  we  can  overpower  if  necessary. 
Lahore,  Ferozepore,  and  Jullundur  are  all  safe  at  present,  and  I  have  no 
anxiety  for  any  of  them  except  Jullundur,  where  the  native  troops  still 
retain  their  arms,  and  may  be  reinforced  from  Hoshiarpore  and  Phillour. 
The  magazines  at  Phillour  and  Ferozepore,  as  well  as  the  forts  of  Lahore 
and  Govudghur  are  garrisoned  by  Europeans,  and  we  are  putting  pro- 
visions in  them. 

Your  Lordship  need  not  fear  for  us.  We  have  some  excellent  officers 
in  the  Punjab,  and  all,  both  civil  and  military,  are  united  and  resolved 
to  maintain  our  own  honour  and  the  security  of  our  power  if  it  can  be 
done.     No  officers  could  have  managed  better. 

I  earnestly  hope  that  your  Lordship  will  not  authorise  the  raising  of 
any  new  Regular  native  infantry  of  any  kind.  If  ever  we  are  to  have  a 
thorough  and  radical  reform  of  the  native  army,  it  will  be  now.  No 
half-measures  will  do.  Nothing  short  of  the  late  transactions  would 
convince  us  of  the  folly  and  weakness  of  the  old  system.  Pray,  my  Lord, 
don't  authorize  any  proposition  for  converting  Irregular  regiments  into 
Regulars.     In  a  few  years  they  will  be  little  better  than  the  old  ones. 

'  The  force  at  Meerut  only  needed  *  extrication  '  from  its  own  utter  helpless- 
ness and  incapacity.     It  never  was  in  the  least  danger  after  May  10. 


52  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

The  men  will  not  like,  and  the  native  officers  will  dislike  it,  for  they  will 
become  nonentities.  Those  Regular  native  infantry  corps  which  remain 
faithful  can  be  maintained.  All  others  should  be  disbanded.  By  keep- 
ing up  more  Irregulars  we  shall  obtain  the  means  of  meeting  the  extra 
cost  of  additional  European  regiments. 

I  would  furthur  suggest  that  all  native  regiments  who  have  not  ac- 
tually fought  against  us,  but  have  shown  by  their  conduct  what  was  in 
their  hearts,  be  hereafter  disbanded.  We  might  have  three  classes  ;  the 
really  faithful,  to  be  maintained,  and  even,  in  especial  cases,  to  be  re- 
warded ;  the  discontented  and  mutinous  who  have  held  cantonments  in 
which  fires  have  constantly  occurred,  to  be  disbanded  ;  and  thirdly,  the 
insurgent  troops  who  have  fought  against  us,  who  have  broken  out  into 
open  mutiny,  and  murdered  our  officers.  These  I  would  hunt  down  as 
Dacoits  and  Thugs  have  been  hunted  down,  and  when  caught  they 
should  be  hanged,  transported  for  life,  or  imprisoned  for  terms  of  years. 
W^here  native  regiments,  or  any  part  of  a  regiment  do  good  service,  I 
should  issue  complimentary  orders  to  them.  I  have  suggested  to  the 
Commander-in-Chief  to  do  so  towards  the  loth  Cavalry  at  Ferozepore, 
and  a  remnant  of  the  3rd  at  Meerut. 

Nor  was  John  Lawrence  content  to  communicate  with  those  only 
who,  as  his  superiors  or  as  his  subordinates,  had  a  right  to  look  for 
reports  or  for  instructions  from  him.  The  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  town  of  Delhi,  of  the  district,  and  of  the  inhabitants,  which  he 
had  acquired  during  his  first  ten  years'  residence  in  India,  he  was 
anxious  to  impart  to  all  to  whom  it  could  be  of  use.  He  had  in- 
tended to  issue  an  appeal,  in  his  own  name,  to  the  chiefs  of  the 
Delhi  district,  calling  on  them  to  prove  their  loyalty  on  the  approach 
of  our  army,  by  rallying  to  its  support,  by  keeping  the  peace  in 
their  respective  neighbourhoods,  and  by  giving  supplies  and  infor- 
mation. But  finding  that  Hervey  Greathed  had  been  deputed  by 
Colvin,  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  North-West,  in  whose 
charge  Delhi  was  still,  by  courtesy,  supposed  to  be,  to  accompany 
the  Meerut  force,  he  determined  to  act  through  him,  and  opened 
a  correspondence  with  him  which  was  kept  up  throughout  the  siege, 
and  with  the  best  results.  In  his  first  letter  he  enumerated  the 
chiefs  to  whom  he  had  proposed  to  appeal ;  advised  that  separate 
letters  should  be  written  to  certain  of  the  officers  of  the  palace 
whom,  from  his  personal  knowledge,  he  thought  might  be  true  to 
us  at  heart ;  described  the  state  of  the  ditch,  the  walls,  the  gates  of 
the  city,  as  he  remembered  them  ;  discussed  the  points  where  an 
attack  might  best  be  made  ;  and  named  the  villages  on  the  road 
between  Kurnal  and  Delhi  where  the  most  abundant  supplies  or 
the  boldest  and  most  knowing  spies  could  be  obtained — men  who 


i857  MUTINY-POLICY   OF   JOHN    LAWRENCE.  53 

would  find  little  difficulty  in  procuring  information  from  the  inte- 
rior of  the  city.  To  Colvin  also  he  wrote  direct,  suggesting  various 
precautions  which  had  been  found  useful  in  the  Punjab.  In  par- 
ticular he  advised  that  each  District  officer  in  the  North-West 
should  be  empowered  to  raise  strong  bodies  of  police,  both  horse 
and  foot,  which  might  help  to  keep  the  peace  in  their  respective 
districts  till  the  capture  of  Delhi  should  set  the  troops  at  liberty. 

With  Bartle  Frere,  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  Scinde,  and  the 
representative,  therefore,  of  a  system  which  was,  in  many  respects, 
opposed  to  that  of  the  Punjab,  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  in  constant 
communication  throughout.  Frere  landed  at  Kurrachi,  on  his 
return  from  furlough,  just  in  time  to  hear  of  the  outbreak  of  the 
Mutiny,  and  he  acted  with  a  promptitude  and  a  fearlessness  of 
responsibility  surpassed  by  no  one  in  the  adjoining  province.  John 
Lawrence  had  written  to  him  on  the  day  after  the  news  reached 
Rawul  Pindi.  But  Frere  without  waiting  to  be  asked,  or  even  to 
get  leave  from  Lord  Elphinstorie  at  Bombay,  at  once,  and  upon  his 
own  responsibility,  sent  off  such  reinforcements  as  he  could  spare, 
or  could  hardly  spare,  to  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  chief  point 
of  danger.  With  only  two  weak  European  regiments  and  one 
troop  of  Horse  Artillery  to  hold  in  check  his  province  of  two  mill- 
ion inhabitants  and  four  native  regiments,  he  sent  off  at  once  two 
hundred  Fusiliers  to  Mooltan.  He  saw  that  it  was  on  the  Punjab 
and  not  on  Scinde  that  the  safety  of  India  would,  in  the  long  run, 
depend,  and  just  as  John  Lawrence  was  resolved  to  denude  the 
Punjab  of  troops  in  order  to  push  the  siege  of  Delhi,  so,  on  a  smaller 
scale,  but  to  the  utmost  limit  of  his  means,  was  Frere  resolved  to 
strip  Scinde  in  order  to  reinforce  the  Punjab.  '  When  the  head 
and  heart  are  threatened,'  he  wrote  to  Lord  Elphinstone,  in  words 
that  have  a  ring  about  them  which  would  have  gone  straight  to 
John  Lawrence's  heart,  '  the  extremities  must  take  care  of  them- 
selves.' And  he  was  as  good  as  his  word.  The  ist  Bombay  Fusi- 
liers, the  ist  Beluch  Battalion,  the  2nd  Beluch  Battalion,  were  de- 
spatched, in  rapid  succession,  to  the  Punjab,  and  that  such  all- 
important  points  as  Mooltan  and  Ferozepore  were  firmly  held,  in 
spite  of  all  the  danger  which  threatened  them,  was  due,  in  part,  to 
his  unstinted  aid.  John  Lawrence  writes  to  him  thus  as  early  as 
May  28  : — 

Many  thanks  for  your  notes  and  all  your  care  for  us.  The  two  hun- 
dred Europeans  for  Mooltan  will  be  a  grand  aid.  With  the  European 
Artillery,  one  hundred  strong,  they  will  make  all  sale.     The  sooner  they 


54  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

arrive    the   better;   as   it  will  enable   us  to  employ  a  corps  of  Punjab 
infantry  who  have  come  here  from  Dera  Ghazi  Khan. 

And,  looking  back  calmly  at  all  that  had  happened  when  the 
crisis  was  over,  he  wrote  thus  in  his  *  Mutiny  Report '  : — 

From  first  to  last,  from  the  first  commencement  of  the  Mutiny  to  the 
final  triumph,  Mr.  H.  B.  E.  Frere  has  rendered  assistance  to  the  Punjab 
Administration  just  as  if  he  had  been  one  of  its  own  Commissioners. 
.  .  .  The  Chief  Commissioner  believes  that  probably  there  is  no  civil 
officer  in  India  who,  for  eminent  exertions,  deserves  better  of  his  Govern- 
ment than  Mr.  H.  B.  E.  Frere. 

On  many  questions  the  two  men  differed  widely  from  each  other 
even  then,  and  they  came  to  differ  more  widely  still  as  time  went 
on.  The  one,  looking  at  the  extreme  poverty  of  the  people  of 
India,  was,  as  he  said  himself,  for  economy  even  to  frugality,  in 
dealing  with  the  public  money.  The  other,  looking  mainly  to  the 
vast  field  open  to  English  enterprise  in  India,  was  lavish  of  it  even 
to  excess.  The  one  was  against  all  unnecessary  extension  of  the 
empire.  The  other  was  for  pushing  it  forward  alike  by  our  arts  and 
by  our  arms.  The  policy  of  the  one  tended  to  make  the  Afghans 
our  friends,  and  helped  to  wipe  out  the  memory  of  one  of  the 
greatest  crimes  and  the  greatest  blunders  we  have  ever  committed 
in  India.  The  policy  of  the  other  led,  in  my  judgment,  directly  up 
to  a  renewal  of  that  blunder  and  that  crime,  and  involved  us  in  a 
second  and  a  third  Afghan  war.  But  there  is  no  more  reason  to 
call  in  question  the  vigour,  the  ability,  the  unselfishness,  the  sin- 
cerity of  purpose  of  the  one  than  of  the  other.  It  is  pleasant,  at 
all  events,  to  recollect  that  during  one  period,  and  that  the  most 
critical  of  their  lives,  the  two  men  worked  together  with  one  heart 
and  one  soul  for  the  great  object,  which  was  never  long  absent  from 
the  mind  of  either,  the  safety  of  the  Empire  and  the  welfare  of  all 
its  inhabitants. 

It  has  been  remarked  by  the  biographer  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence 
that  there  is  room  in  the  Indian  pantheon  even  for  such  fiercely 
conflicting  spirits  as  Sir  James  Outram  and  Sir  Charles  Napier,  It 
may  surely  be  said,  with  at  least  equal  truth,  even  while  party  spi.nt 
is  still  running  high,  and  while  the  tremendous  issues  which  may 
follow  from  the  policy  of  each  are  still  half-hidden  in  the  womb  of 
the  future,  that  the  Indian  pantheon  has  room  enough  for  the  brill- 
iant and  restless  and  resolute  representative  of  the  '  forward,'  as  well 
as  for  the  consistent  and  statesmanlike  and  heroic  champion  of  the 
'  backward '  policy — for  Sir  Bartle  Frere  as  well  as  for  Lord  Lawrence,. 


i857  MUTINY-POLICY   OF   JOHN    LAWRENCE.  55 

While  John  Lawrence  had  thus  been  keeping  his  finger  on  the 
pulse  of  his  province,  a  great  crisis  had  come  and  gone  at  Pesha- 
wur.  We  last  saw  him  closeted  with  Herbert  Edwardes  and  with 
others  of  the  wiser  heads  in  his  province  of  Rawul  Pindi,  and,  on 
the  2ist  of  May,  Edwardes  returned  to  Peshawur  in  full  possession 
of  his  chief's  views,  and  prepared,  on  the  first  alarm,  to  advise  the 
disarmament  of  the  Regulars  there.  It  was  the  very  nick  of  time. 
Already  Nicholson,  who  was  not  a  man  to  keep  more  troops  than 
were  absolutely  necessary  about  him,  finding  that  Peshawur  was  too 
weak  for  the  dangers  it  had  to  face,  had  asked  by  telegraph  that  a 
wing  of  the  27th  Regiment,  which  was  on  its  way  from  the  frontier 
to  the  interior,  might  be  recalled  to  defend  the  Attock  fort  and 
ferry.  Already  letters  had  been  detected  passing  from  one  of  the 
native  regiments  at  Peshawur  to  the  detachments  in  the  frontier 
forts,  naming  the  day  on  which  they  were  all  to  flock  into  Pesha- 
wur, '  eating  there  and  drinking  here,'  for  such  was  the  vigorous 
expression  which  indicated  the  speed  that  was  required.  Already 
vast  piles  of  intercepted  correspondence  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
authorities,  which  seemed  to  show  that  Peshawur  was  only  one  link 
in  the  chain  of  preconcerted  mutiny  connecting  the  fanatics  of 
Sitana  beyond  our  frontier  with  those  of  Patna  or  Benares.  And 
now,  at  midnight,  a  message  reached  Edwardes  that  mutinous  inten- 
tions were  already  passing  into  mutinous  acts  at  Attock,  at  Nou- 
shera,  and  at  Murdan. 

There  was  no  time  to  be  lost.  Not  a  man  could  be  spared  from 
Peshawur  to  coerce  these  mutineers,  while  much  larger  numbers, 
with  mutiny  in  their  hearts  and  arms  in  their  hands  were  left  behind 
in  the  cantonments  there.  On  the  other  hand,  in  a  few  hours,  the 
news  which  was,  at  present,  the  monopoly  of  the  authorities  would 
filter  through  to  the  city  and  the  native  troops,  and  the  smouldering 
embers  would  be  kindled  into  a  flame  which  it  might  be  beyond 
the  power  of  the  Empire  to  extinguish.  '  Peshawur  once  gone,' 
said  a  trusty  Sikh  chief  to  the  magistrate  of  Umritsur,  *  the  whole 
Punjab  would  roll  up  like  this,'  and  as  he  spoke  he  began  slowly 
with  his  finger  and  thumb  to  roll  up  his  robe  from  the  corner  of  the 
hem  towards  its  centre. '  *  You  know  on  what  a  nest  of  devils  we 
stand,'  writes  Edwardes  to  the  Chief  Commissioner.  'Once  let  us 
take  our  foot  up,  and  we  shall  be  stung  to  death.'  And  Edwardes 
and  his  companions  had  no  intention  of  taking  their  foot  up,  but 
rather  of  putting  it  down  and  keeping  it  there. 

'  Cave  Brown's  Funjab  and  Dellr,   vol.    i.   p.    153. 


56  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

He  and  Nicholson  were  sleeping,  as  they  had  arranged,  under 
the  same  roof  and  in  their  clothes,  so  that  they  might  be  ready  for 
any  emergency.  It  was  just  midnight  when  the  news  of  the  out- 
break at  Noushera  arrived,  and  it  was  not  many  minutes  after  mid- 
night when  they  both  found  themselves  standing  by  the  bedside  of 
Brigadier  Cotton.  Their  business  was  soon  told,  and  a  Council  of 
AN'ar  summoned.  The  '  politicals  '  were,  as  usual,  for  instant  action  ; 
the  military  ofificers,  as  usual,  with  a  chivalrous  blindness  which  it  is 
impossible  not  to  make  allowance  for,  and  even,  in  a  measure,  to 
admire,  still  had  '  implicit  confidence  '  in  their  men.  High  words 
passed.  Cotton  listened  to  both  sides,  and  decided  for  disarma- 
ment. Four  regiments,  three  of  infantry  and  one  of  cavalry,  were 
to  be  disarmed  in  the  early  morning;  while  the  21st  Infantry,  of 
whom  better  things  were  hoped,  was  for  the  present  to  be  spared 
and  trusted.  It  was  a  critical  moment ;  almost  as  critical  as  that 
a  fortnight  earlier  at  Lahore  ;  and,  as  at  Lahore,  the  civil  officers 
rode  down  to  have  a  finger  in  the  business  which  was  to  make  or 
mar  them.  The  four  regiments  might  resist,  as  indeed  some  of  their 
officers  who  most  believed  in  their  fidelity,  with  strange  inconsis- 
tency, predicted  that  they  would  ;  they  might  be  joined  by  their 
brethren  who  were  to  be  spared  for  the  present,  but  must  feel  that 
their  own  turn  would  come  next ;  the  '  legion  of  devils '  in  the  city 
and  the  surrounding  country  would  then  be  up,  and  then 

There  were  two  Queen's  regiments,  two  batteries  of  Artillery, 
and,  strangest  of  all,  a  body  of  Afridi  volunteers,  our  inveterate 
foes,  just  picked  up  from  the  Kohat  Pass,  to  do  the  work  of  dis- 
armament, and  they  did  it.  The  four  suspected  regiments,  isolated 
from  each  other,  and  given  no  time  to  think  or  to  speak,  did  as  they 
were  ordered  ;  and  as  the  heaps  of  piled  arms  grew  in  siie,  '  here 
and  there,'  says  Herbert  Edwardes,  'the  spurs  and  swords  of  Eng- 
lish ofificers  fell  sympathisingly  on  the  pile.' 

The  effect  of  the  disarmament,  'a  master  stroke,'  as  John  Law- 
rence called  it,  was  instantaneous  on  the  surrounding  district,  and 
was  soon  felt  along  the  frontier  generally.  Of  the  2,000  Mooltani 
horse  which  had  been  called  for  during  some  days  previously,  only 
100  had  as  yet  responded  to  our  call.  Why  should  the  rough  bor- 
derers join  what  was,  probably,  a  losing  and  was,  certainly,  a  doubt- 
ful cause  ?  But  now  the  case  was  altered.  '  As  we  rode  back  from 
the  cantonments,'  says  Edwardes  again,  *  friends  were  as  thick  as 
summer  flies,  and  levies  began  from  that  moment  to  come  in  ; '  and 
he  goes  on  to  describe,  in  a  graphic  passage  which  is  unfortunately 
too  long  to  (juote  here,  the  process  of  enlistment  which  hencefor- 


i857  MUTINY-POLICY   OF   JOHN   LAWRENCE.  5/ 

ward  went  on  from  day  to  day  ;  the  eager  emulation,  now  that  there 
was  money  to  be  freely  won  and  blood  to  be  freely  spilt,  of  every 
idle  vagrant,  of  every  professional  robber,  of  every  truculent  student 
at  the  mosques,  to  join  our  first  levies  ;  while  every  unconquerably 
vicious  brute  which  its  owner  could  not  ride,  and  every  miserable 
screw  which  could  hardly  drag  itself  along  to  the  scene  of  action, 
or  even  to  the  knacker's  yard,  was  importunately  pressed  upon  us, 
and  formed  the  nucleus  of  a  new  Irregular — a  very  irregular — cav- 
alry. And  before  long,  even  from  beyond  our  border,  villainous 
Afridis,  Mohmunds,  and  Eusofzies,  men  who  had  spent  their  lives 
in  robbing  and  killing  our  subjects,  or  belonged  to  tribes  who  were, 
even  now,  under  our  ban,  came  flocking  in,  with  penitence  in  their 
faces  and  doubly-dyed  rascality  in  their  hearts,  delighted  to  pay  off 
old  scores  upon  the  Sepoys,  whom  they  derisively  styled  the  Kala 
Kaum  (those  niggers),  to  guard  us  against  those  who  should  have 
been  the  first  to  guard  us,  and  to  hunt  them  down  like  vermin  when 
they  had  the  chance. 

The  Peshawur  garrison  was,  now  at  length,  able  to  spare  some 
men  to  act  against  the  mutineers  who  had  gathered  at  Murdan. 
On  the  evening  of  the  day  following  the  disarmament,  a  force  of 
300  European  Infantry,  250  Irregular  Cavalry,  and  8  guns,  under 
the  command  of  Colonel  Chute  and  accompanied  by  Nicholson  as 
'political  officer,'  set  out  from  Peshawur,  and,  early  on  the  follow- 
ing morning,  they  arrived  at  their  destination.  Seeing  their  ap- 
proach, the  55th — with  the  exception  of  some  120  men,  chiefly 
Punjabis,  who  remained  with  their  officers — fled  towards  the  Swat 
frontier.  The  European  Infantry,  tired  with  their  march,  were 
unable  to  overtake  them  ;  and  the  Irregular  Cavalry  showed  by  their 
lagging  pursuit  that  they  were  not  prepared  to  act  against  their 
brethren.  It  was  a  danger  which  had  been  long  feared,  but  never 
more  than  half  acknowledged.  Now,  then,  was  the  chance  for 
Nicholson.  Putting  himself  at  the  head  of  a  mere  handful  of 
mounted  Sowars,  as  though  he  were  determined  to  justify  his  chief's 
expression  in  its  most  literal  sense,  that  he  was  *  worth  the  wing  of 
a  regiment,'  he  flung  himself  with  '  terrible  courage  '  on  the  flying 
foe,  and,  seeming  to  multiply  himself  many  times -over  as  he  rode 
hither  and  thither,  laid  low,  with  his  own  stalwart  right  arm,  dozens 
of  men  who,  as  he  admitted  afterwards  in  genuine  admiration, 
fought  desperately.  Throughout  that  livelong  day,  beneath  the 
burning  heat  of  the  sun,  the  pursuit  continued,  till  one  hundred 
and  fifty  Sepoys  had  fallen,  no  small  proportion  of  them  beneath 
Nicholson's  own  hand.     As  many  more  were  taken  prisoners,  and 


58  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

the  rest,  some  five  hundred  in  number,  many  of  them  wounded, 
managed  to  escape  over  the  friendly  Swat  border.  It  was  not 
until  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  that  this  new  Homeric  chieftain 
rode  back  to  the  point  from  which  the  pursuit  had  begun,  after 
having  been  some  twenty  hours  in  the  saddle,  and  having  ridden 
some  seventy  miles  without  a  change  of  horse  !  It  was  the  first  of 
those  '  Nicholsonian  '  deeds  of  daring  which  were  to  end  only  with 
his  life  and  the  capture  of  Delhi. 

A  more  terrible  fate  awaited  the  five  hundred  Sepoys  who  had 
escaped  Nicholson's  avenging  arm.  Driven  out  of  Swat,  after  a 
miserable  sojourn  of  a  month,  by  its  fanatical  inhabitants,  they 
managed  to  cross  the  Indus  on  inflated  skins  and  rafts,  and,  in 
sheer  despair,  determined  to  attempt  to  make  their  way  through  the 
savage  defiles  and  the  tremendous  precipices  of  Kohistan  to  Cash- 
mere. But  John  Becher,  the  Deputy  Commissioner  of  Huzara,  was 
on  the  look-out  for  their  approach.  He  raised  the  wild  mountain 
clans  against  them.  With  an  ever-watchful  enemy  blocking  up  in 
front  of  them  the  goats'  paths  by  which  they  moved,  or  pressing 
hard  upon  them  in  the  rear,  they  fought  or  struggled  on  for  a  weary 
fortnight,  their  difficulties  and  dangers  increasing  at  every  step,  till 
at  last,  their  money  spent,  their  strength  exhausted,  their  weapons, 
many  of  them,  thrown  away  in  the  struggle  for  bare  life  upon  the 
slippery  ledges,  footsore,  and  haggard,  and  hungry,  the  miserable 
remnant,  124  in  all,  surrendered  at  discretion,  and  were  hanged  or 
blown  away  from  guns  in  different  parts  of  the  Huzara  District,* 
Their  sufferings  might  have  touched  a  heart  of  stone,  and  those  who 
knew  Becher  well  knew  that,  brave  as  he  was,  his  heart  was  of  the 
tenderest.  But  he  felt,  and  probably  with  good  reason,  that  at  this 
early  and  most  critical  stage  of  the  Mutiny,  stern  severity  would 
prove  the  truest  mercy  in  the  end.  '  We  are  doing  well,'  writes 
John  Lawrence,  '  in  every  district  ;  Becher  famously.' 

But  though  four  regiments  had  been  disarmed  and  one  all  but 
annihilated,  all  danger  was  not  yet  over  in  the  Peshawur  District. 
The  detachments,  indeed,  of  the  mutinous  64th  which  had  been 
relegated  to  the  frontier  forts  were  disarmed,  without  difficulty,  by 
Nicholson  and  Chute  during  the  few  days  which  followed  the  flight 
of  the  55th  from  Murdan.  But  the  operation  was  not  completed  a 
day  too  soon.  For  Ajoon  Khan,  a  noted  freebooter,  who  was  sup- 
ported by  the  Akhund  of  Swat,  had  already  come  down  to  our 
frontier,  and,  by  prearrangement  with  the  Sepoys,  was  on  the  point 
of  being  admitted  into  the  forts.  Moreover,  there  was  the  much 
greater  danger  which  the  pursuit  at  Murdan  had  forced  us  to  take 


i8S7  MUTINY-POLICY  OF  JOHN  LAWRENCE.  59 

into  account,  the  general  disaffection  of  the  Irregular  Cavalry,  or, 
at  all  events,  their  determination  not  to  act  against  their  brethren. 
A  rising  on  their  part  would,  it  was  feared,  be  supported  by  the 
four  regiments  which  had  been  nominally  disarmed.  I  say  nominally 
disarmed  ;  for  in  a  wild  country  like  Peshawur,  where  every  native 
bore  arms,  and  almost  every  one  was  a  cut-throat  from  his  cradle 
onwards,  weapons  were  always  to  be  had  for  the  asking,  and  rumour 
said  that  large  quantities  of  them  were  already,  or  were  still,  secreted 
in  the  lines.  Would  it  be  better  to  run  the  tremendous  risk  which 
an  attempt  to  disarm  the  three  cavalry  regiments  would  involve,  or 
to  attempt,  by  extra  precautions,  to  tide  over  the  interval  ;  an  in- 
terval, as  it  was  then  thought,  not  of  months  but  of  days,  till  the 
news  of  the  fall  of  Delhi  should  make  us  masters  of  the  position  ? 
Nicholson,  finding  that  even  the  camp  followers  of  the  European 
regiments  were  talking  in  the  bazaars  of  a  Holy  war,  advised  delay ; 
and  where  Nicholson  advised  delay,  every  one  else  might  be  sure 
that  there  must  be  grave  reason  for  his  doing  so.  Urgent  letters 
were  written  by  Nicholson  hii^self,  by  Edwardes  and  by  Cotton, 
to  John  Lawrence,  begging  him  to  send  them  reinforcements,  even 
if,  in  order  to  do  so,  he  should  find  it  necessary  to  recall  troops 
which  were  already  on  their  way  to  Delhi. 

It  was  a  sore  trial  to  Sir  John  Lawrence.  But  he  recognised  the 
necessity  and  acted  without  hesitation.  He  ordered  Wilde,  who, 
with  his  splendid  regiment,  700  strong,  was  already  on  his  march, 
to  turn  back  and  hold  Attock.  He  bade  Henderson  send  up  250 
Cavalry  from  Kohat  to  Peshawur,  asked  Becher  to  send  thither 
every  man  whom  he  could  spare  from  Huzara,  and  he  himself  de- 
spatched 220  of  the  Police  from  Rawul  Pindi.  *We  have  not,'  he 
writes  to  Edwardes  ;  *  kept  a  native  soldier  who  is  worth  anything 
here.  We  are  very  anxious  for  your  safety.  I  cannot  fail  to  see 
how  precarious  your  position  may  prove.'  General  Reed  had  just 
left  Rawul  Pindi  to  assume  the  provincial  command  before  Delhi, 
and  John  Lawrence  had  authorised  his  taking  with  him  the  Mov- 
able Column  as  far  as  Kurnal.  '  It  is  a  force,'  he  gleefully  remarks, 
*  which  is  alone  sufficient  to  take  Delhi  and  to  keep  it.'  It  was  a  part 
of  this  very  force  which  he  was  now  driven  to  recall  for  the  de- 
fence of  Peshawur,  and — to  make  matters  worse — he  was  informed 
by  Reed,  about  the  same  time,  that  General  Johnstone,  who  was 
then  at  JuUundur,  would  be  appointed  Brigadier-General  and  take 
the  command  of  the  Peshawur  Division  which  he  had  just  vacated. 

This  proposal  meant,  as  John  Lawrence  knew  too  well,  that  mili- 
tary capacity  and   energy  of  a  high  kind  would  be   superseded  by 


6o  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWREx\CE.  1857 

incapacity  and  vacillation.  Such  qualities  were  dangerous  enough 
anywhere,  as  the  experience  of  a  few  days  later  was  to  prove  at 
Jullundur.  But  at  Peshawur  they  would  be  absolutely  fatal.  It 
was  no  time  for  mincing  matters  or  for  asking  himself  whether  he 
had  any  right  to  interfere.  He  had  remonstrated  boldly  even  with 
Lord  Dalhousie,  in  time  of  peace,  on  an  appointment  he  had  in- 
tended to  make  to  the  Commissionership  of  Peshawur  and  had  won 
the  day,  and  he  was  not  likely,  therefore,  to  be  silent  with  Lord 
Canning  now.  He  had  taken  on  himself,  as  soon  as  he  heard  of 
Anson's  death,  to  suggest  to  the  Governor-General  by  telegraph 
that  Patrick  Grant,  a  man  '  who  knew  and  understood  the  Sepoys 
and  had  good  common  sense  and  knowledge  of  his  profession, 
should  be  summoned  from  Madras  to  take  the  Command-in-Chief  ; 
and  now  he  telegraphed  even  more  urgently,  requesting  that  Cotton 
and  not  Johnstone  should  succeed  to  the  post  for  which  his  pre- 
vious services  and  his  present  position  marked  him  out.  '  I  am 
afraid,'  he  wrote  to  Edwardes,  'that  it  is  too  heterodox  an  arrange- 
ment to  prove  acceptable.*  But  Lord  Canning  felt  that  it  was 
heterodoxy  and  not  orthodoxy  which  must  save  India,  and  he  ac- 
cepted the  suggestion.  '  I  hope,'  writes  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  Gen- 
eral Reed,  '  that  General  Johnstone  will  not  be  sent  up  here.  No 
officer  could  have  managed  better  than  Brigadier  S.  Cotton,  and  if 
he  is  superseded  I  do  not  know  what  will  happen.  I  beg  that 
General  Johnstone  may  be  kept  where  he  is,  or,  at  all  events,  not 
sent  up  to  Rawul  Pindi  to  command  this  Division.' 

A  letter  to  Lord  Canning,  dated  May  29,  will  perhaps  give  the 
be:t  general  view  of  the  immediate  crisis  at  Peshawur,  and  of  the 
steps  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  already  taken,  or  proposed  to 
take  to  meet  it  : — 

My  Lord, — We  are  all  right  in  the  Punjab.  Our  only  danger  lies  at 
Peshawur,  and  this  is  in  consequence  of  the  sympathy  shown  by  the 
Irregular  Cavalry  towards  those  concerned  in  the  present  disaffection.  I 
have,  for  some  time,  heard  that  this  force  had  expressed  an  intention  not 
to  act  against  the  Regulars  ;  and  this  was  openly  shown  in  the  affair  at 
Murdan  on  the  26th,  At  present  there  is  danger  of  an  invasion  from 
Swat,  which  would  be  joined  by  the  disaffected  regiments  in  the  valley. 
I  have  done  all  I  can  to  reinforce  the  Europeans.  We  started  off  from 
this  place  every  man  we  could  muster  of  the  Police  Battalion,  even  to  the 
guard  of  the  jail.  We  have  left  Huzara  to  care  for  itself,  and  ordered 
up  some  cavalry  from  Kohat.  These  will  be  in  the  valley  in  three  days, 
and  Wilde's  regiment  of  800  riflemen  will  probably  be  there  also  in  ten. 
We  have  recalled  the  24th  Queen's  from  the  Movable  Column.  In  the 
meantime,  the  European  Infantry  and  guns,  fighting  in  the  open,  wili 


l8S7  MUTINY-POLICY  OF   JOHN  LAWRENCE.  6i 

beat  clown  all  opposition.  The  danger  arises  mainly  from  the  season  of 
the  year  and  the  exposure  which  the  men  must  undergo.  They  have, 
however,  a  few  staunch  companies  of  the  Punjab  force.  Two  under 
Major  Vaughan  were  present  in  the  skirmish  on  the  26th,  and  gave  a 
party  with  the  Europeans  to  shoot  the  seven  men  condemned  to  death  on 
the  27th. 

I  hope  your  Lordship  will  accede  to  my  proposal  to  give  their  discharge 
to  such  men  of  the  Regular  Native  Army  as  may  desire  it.  At  present, 
particularly  on  the  frontier,  they  are  a  source  of  difficulty  and  danger  to 
us.  We  have  to  guard  against  them  and  hold  the  country.  With  arms 
in  tlieir  hands  and  in  organised  bodies  they  are  dangerous.  Without 
arms,  and  turned  adrift,  they  can  do  nothing.  Some  few  may  go  to 
swell  the  insurgent  body.  But  this  is  of  no  consequence.  The  greater 
portion  will  make  for  their  homes.  At  present,  officers  cannot  discern 
the  good  from  the  bad,  the  discontented  from  the  well-disposed.  The 
license  to  depart  would  act  as  a  safety-valve  under  such  circumstances. 
The  measure  would  have  the  advantage  of  economy,  which,  at  this  time, 
is  also  an  advantage.  There  can  be  no  fear  that  we  shall  not  be  able  to 
raise  Native  troops  enough.  We  might  raise  80,000  in  the  Punjab  alone 
in  the  next  three  mouths.  The  Punjabis  say  that  God  has  sent  this  dis- 
turbance to  give  them  a  fair  share  of  the  Company's  employment.  I  am, 
however,  by  no  means  an  advocate  for  raising  too  viatty  of  this  class. 

He  enclosed  his  letter  in  one  to  Barnes,  because  he  hoped  that 
the  Cis-Sutlej  Commissioner  might  find  a  quicker  means  of  trans- 
mitting it  than  the  voyage  round  India.  '  Send  on  this  letter/  he 
said,  '  to  the  Governor-General  by  a  safe  route.  I  hope  you  will 
act  with  vigour  and  firmness  against  all  evil  doers.  Now  is  the  time 
to  beat  down  disorder  with  an  iron  hand. ' 

It  may  have  been  observed  that  I  have  repeatedly  quoted  letters 
in  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  advocates  strong  measures  in  dealing 
with  the  mutineers.  And  I  have  done  so  purposely,  in  order  that  I 
may  now  lay  all  the  more  stress  on  what  implies  the  possession  of 
much  rarer  and  more  admirable  qualities,  and  marks  him  out  as 
pre-eminently  the  man  to  have  held  the  reins  of  power  at  such  a 
crisis — I  mean  his  rigid  sense  of  justice,  and  his  determination, 
while  he  was  for  severity  so  long  as  severity  was  necessary  or  was 
likely  to  prove  mercy  in  the  end,  not  to  allow  a  drop  of  blood  to  be 
shed  in  the  mere  luxury  or  wantonness  of  revenge.  Unlike  some 
of  his  subordinates,  and  unlike,  it  may  be  added  without  injustice, 
too  many  of  our  countrymen,  at  that  terrible  time  both  in  India 
and  at  home,  he  kept  his  head  throughout.  He  never  joined  in  the 
cry  for  indiscriminate  vengeance,  a  cry  which  he  thought  to  be  as 
impolitic  as  it  was  un-Christian  and  unjust,  and  which  was  sometimes 
heard  most  loudly  in  quarters  where  it  was  least  to  be  expected  or 


62  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

excused.  He  knew,  as  his  letters  show,  how  much  there  was  to  be 
said  in  extenuation  of  the  Sepoys'  guilt  ;  how  much  the  blindness 
of  the  authorities  had  contributed  towards  it ;  how  much  was  due 
to  their  state  of  blind  panic,  to  their  credulity,  to  their  love  for  their 
religion.  He  knew  how  many,  with  intentions  the  most  loyal,  were 
hurried  away  with  the  stream,  and,  like  many  other  good  men  and 
true,  who  happily  for  our  fair  fame  chanced,  at  that  time,  to  be  fill- 
ing the  most  responsible  situations  in  the  countr}^,  he  thought  it 
alike  unstatesmanlike  and  unjust, — when  once  the  necessary  ex- 
ample had  been  made, — not  to  draw  distinctions  of  guilt,  not  to 
leave  a  place  for  repentance,  not  to  put  a  strict  restraint  on  the 
wild  yearning  for  revenge.  In  this  respect  he  deserves  to  be  placed 
side  by  side  with  the  noble-minded  Governor-General,  whose  nick- 
name of  *  Clemency '  first  given  to  him  in  England  as  a  term  of  the 
bitterest  reproach,  will  through  all  history,  like  that  of  the  '  Cuncta- 
tor '  at  Rome,  form  his  highest  title  to  the  admiration  and  gratitude 
of  Englishmen. 

From  the  very  beginning  of  his  high  official  career  John  Law- 
rence had  set  his  face  against  the  lax  notions  of  justice  and  of  legal 
evidence,  which,  owing  chiefly  to  their  want  of  civil  and  legal  train- 
ing, prevailed  among  some  of  the  ablest  of  his  soldier-subordinates. 
Again  and  again  the  civil  authorities  at  Lahore  had  been  driven  to 
overrule  wholesale  the  capital  sentences  passed  by  honest  but  hastily 
judging  District  officers  on  the  frontier.  On  one  occasion  a  dozen 
such  sentences  for  murder  were  sent  up  from  Peshawur  to  be  ratified 
by  the  central  authorities  at  Lahore  ;  each  charge  being  substan- 
tiated only  by  the  unsupported  assertion  of  one  single  native,  who, 
as  he  deposed,  with  charming  simplicity,  had  had  the  good  luck  to 
come  in  at  the  exact  moment  to  see  the  deed  done  !  '  Why,  I  would 
not  hang  a  chiriya  (a  bird),'  remarked  John  Lawrence,  'on  such 
evidence,'  and  he  straightway  quashed  the  whole.  The  same  rigid 
sense  of  justice  governed  him  throughout  the  Mutiny,  and  stood 
him  in  good  stead  now  when  it  was  the  fate,  not  of  a  bird,  but  of 
120  mutineers  of  the  55th  Regiment,  whose  fate  w'as  trembling  in 
the  balance.  There  was  no  doubt  that  every  one  of  them  had  been 
guilty  of  mutiny  and  desertion,  that  they  had  been  taken  with  arms 
in  their  hands,  that  in  the  eye  of  military  law  they  deserved  to  die, 
and  that,  in  the  interests  of  mercy  as  well  as  of  justice,  a  stern 
example  must  be  made. 

The  authorities  at  Peshawur  had  already  made  up  their  minds. 

The  trial  of  the  55th  prisoners  (writes  Edwardes,  on  June  i,  to  John 
Lawrence)  will  begin  on  Thursday  ;  and,  as  they  may  be  tried  in  a  lump 


1 857  MUTINY-POLICY   OF   JOHN    LAWRENCE.  6^ 

for  the  charge  of  '  Mutiny,'  they  will  be  disposed  of  at  once  ;  and  we 
propose  to  make  an  awful  and  lasting  example  by  blowing  them  away 
from  guns  before  the  whole  garrison.  Five  can  be  placed  before  each 
gun,  and  two  troops  of  artillery  will  throw  sixty  of  them  into  the  air  at 
once.  A  second  round  will  finish  the  matter  ;  and,  awful  as  such  a 
scene  will  be,  I  must  say  my  judgment  approves  it.  The  Native  army 
requires  to  be  appalled.     They  have  not  shrunk  from  appalling  us. 

The  next  post  took  back  the  Chief  Commissioner's  reply,  though 
his  opinion  had  not  been  asked  and  he  had  no  strict  right  to  inter- 
fere. 

In  respect  to  the  mutineers  of  the  55th,  they  were  taken  fighting 
against  us,  and,  so  far,  deserve  little  mercy.  But,  on  full  reflection,  I 
would  not  put  them  all  to  death.  I  do  not  think  that  we  shall  be  justified 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Almighty  in  doing  so.  One  hundred  and  twenty  men 
are  a  large  number  to  put  to  death.  Our  object  is  to  make  an  example 
to  terrify  others.  I  think  this  object  would  be  effectually  gained  by  de- 
stroying from  one-fourth  to  one-third  of  their  number.  I  would  select 
all  those  against  whom  anything  bad  could  be  shown — such  as  general 
bad  character,  turbulence,  prominence  in  the  disaffection  or  in  the  fight, 
disrespectful  demeanour  to  their  officers  during  the  few  days  before  the 
26th  and  the  like.  If  these  would  not  make  up  the  required  number,  I 
would  then  add  to  them  the  oldest  soldiers.  All  these  should  be  shot 
or  blown  away,  as  may  be  deemed  expedient.  The  rest  I  would  divide 
into  batches,  some  to  be  imprisoned  ten  years,  others  seven,  others  five, 
others  three.  I  think  that  a  sufficient  example  will  thus  be  made,  and 
that  the  distinctions  that  will  have  been  made  will  do  good  and  not  harm. 
The  Sepoys  will  see  that  we  punish  to  deter,  and  not  for  revenge;  and 
public  sympathy  will  not  be  on  the  side  of  the  sufferers.  Otherwise, 
men  will  fight  desperately  to  the  last,  as  feeling  certain  they  must 
die. 

It  is  quite  true  that  it  is  very  inconvenient  and  even  dangerous  having 
so  many  rascals  in  our  gaol,  but  this  we  cannot  help.  We  must  suffer 
the  inconvenience.  .  .  .  What  I  have  written  regarding  the  mutineers 
is  simply  my  own  opinion.  Their  fate  will  rest  with  the  officers  com- 
prising the  court-martial. 

The  next  day  he  recurs  to  the  subject  in  still  stronger  terms  : — 

I  think  the  arrangement  to  shoot  every  tenth  man  of  the  deserters  of 
the  51st  is  good  and  reasonable.  The  example  will  prove  efficacious, 
and  there  is  nothing  revengeful  in  the  measure.  But  the  intention  of 
blowing  away  all  the  55th  seems  to  me  horrible  ;  and  I  entreat  you  to 
use  your  influence  and  get  Cotton  to  modify  the  decision.  If  one-third 
or  one-fourth  were  blown  away  it  would  answer  every  purpose,  excite 
equal  terror,  and  not  the  same  horror. 


64  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

On  the  same  day  he  wrote  to  Cotton  direct  with  equal  urgency: — 

I  trust  that  you  will  not  destroy  all  the  men  of  the  55th  who  have  heen 
seized.  .  .  .  Such  a  wholesale  slaughter  will,  I  think,  be  cruel  and  have 
a  bad  effect.  It  will  be  tantamount  to  giving  no  quarter,  and  therefore 
men  in  similar  circumstances  will  have  no  inducement  to  yield,  but 
rather  to  fight  to  the  last.  We  should  also  recollect  that  these  Sepoys 
might  have  committed  many  atrocities,  whereas  they  perpetrated  none. 
They  did  not  destroy  public  property,  and  they  saved  the  lives  of  their 
officers  when  in  their  power.  These  circumstances  entitle  them  to  con- 
sideration, which  I  beg  they  will  receive  at  your  hands.  I  have  felt  vexed 
at  seeing  the  way  in  which  mutineers  and  murderers  have  escaped  pun- 
ishment in  other  places.  I  am  a  staunch  advocate  for  punishment,  but 
in  proportion  to  the  offence. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  remonstrances  so  vigorous,  so 
statesmanlike,  and  so  Christian  met  with  the  response  that  they 
deserved.  Forty  men  only  instead  of  a  hundred  and  twenty,  and 
those  the  most  guilty  of  the  whole,  were  blown  into  fragments  in 
the  presence  of  the  assembled  garrison  of  Peshawur  and  of  vast 
numbers  of  spectators  from  the  surrounding  country.  It  was  a 
ghastly  spectacle  enough  ;  and  that  it  was  not  more  ghastly  still, 
that  it  did  not  excite  loathing  and  repulsion  as  well  as  awe,  that  it 
was  looked  upon  as  a  measure  of  stern  retribution  rather  than  of 
indiscriminate  revenge,  was  due  to  the  man  who  never  lost  his  head  ; 
who  'never  acted  on  mere  impulse,'  and,  happily  for  the  interests 
of  mercy,  as  well  as  of  justice,  held  the  chief  place  in  the  Punjab. 

The  energy  and  promptitude  which  had  been  so  abundantly  dis- 
played at  Lahore  and  at  Peshawur  were  brought  into  still  stronger 
relief  by  the  miserable  contrast  presented  to  them  at  Jullundur.  At 
Ferozepore  there  had  been  some  bungling.  But  at  Jullundur  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  there  was  a  display  of  incapacity  and 
neglect  on  the  part  of  the  chief  military  authorities,  to  which  the 
history  of  the  Mutiny,  happily,  affords  few  parallels.  At  that  im- 
portant cantonment  there  were  three  native  regiments,  two  of  In- 
fantry and  one  of  Cavalry,  all  of  them  well  known  to  be  tainted. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  was  the  8th  Queen's  Regiment,  supported 
by  an  adequate  Artillery,  and  by  the  ever  active  aid  of  the  Raja  of 
Kupurthulla,  another  of  those  protected  Sikh  chieftains  who  seemed 
determined  in  this,  the  hour  of  our  need,  to  pay  back  all  that  they 
owed  us.  Lake,  the  Commissioner  of  the  Division,  and  Johnstone, 
who  was  in  command  of  the  station,  had  happened  to  be  absent 
from  Jullundur  at  the  time  of  the  Meerut  outbreak.  But  their 
places  had  been  ably  filled  by  Colonel  Hartley,  of  the  8th  Queen's, 


i8S7  MUTINY-POLICY    OF   JOHN    LAWRENCE.  65 

and  by  Captain  Farrington,  the  Deputy  Commissioner.  Every  pre- 
caution for  the  protection  of  the  cantonments  in  the  station  had 
been  promptly  taken.  A  detachment  had  been  sent  off  to  secure 
the  fort  and  arsenal  of  Phillour,  some  twenty  miles  distant,  and  the 
civil  treasure  had  been  transferred,  by  express  order  of  Sir  John 
Lawrence,  from  the  care  of  the  Sepoys  to  that  of  the  European 
soldiers.  '  Its  loss,'  he  said,  '  would  strengthen  the  enemy,  and  be 
really  discreditable  to  us.' 

Almost  the  first  step  of  Brigadier  Johnstone,  when  he  came  down 
from  Simla,  was  to  order  the  treasure  to  be  restored  to  the  care  of 
the  Sepoys,  and  when  peremptory  orders  were  flashed  down  from 
Sir  John  Lawrence  and  General  Reed  to  undo  what  had  been  done, 
it  was  already  too  late.  For  even  the  civilians  who  had  been  most 
scandalised  by  the  fatuity  of  the  General,  feared  now  that  to  reverse 
the  step  would  precipitate  the  outbreak.  Once  and  again  in  May, 
John  Lawrence  had  advised  disarmament,  and  on  June  5  he  tele- 
graphed to  Lake  to  urge  the  Brigadier  to  carry  it  out  at  once.  The 
words  of  the  telegram  I  have  been  unable  to  discover,  but  his  letter 
to  Lake,  written  on  the  same  day,  will  indicate  its  character  : — 

If  we  have  any  accident  at  Delhi,  you  may  depend  on  it  that  we 
shall  have  an  outbreak  among  the  Sepoys  in  the  Jullundur  Doab.  The 
question,  then,  is,  Shall  we  wait  for  them  to  begin  or  shall  we  take  the 
initiative  ?  It  is  our  bounden  duty  to  take  the  latter  course,  and  for  you 
and  me  to  urge  it  on  Brigadier  Johnstone.  .  .  .  Since  I  began  this  letter, 
yours  of  the  31st  has  come  in  and  confirms  all  I  have  written.  It  is  per- 
fectly clear  that  the  36th  Native  Infantry  are  ready  to  break  out  at  a  mo- 
ment's warning.  You  will  receive  my  telegraphic  message  this  day. 
I  strongly  urge  on  Brigadier  Johnstone  the  expediency  of  disarming 
all  the  Poorbea  Infantry,  with  the  few  exceptions  of  known  loyalty  which 
may  exist.  There  can  be  no  real  difficulty  in  doing  this.  All  that  is 
required  is  a  little  management.  .  .  .  Please  show  this  to  General 
Johnstone.  I  will  take  the  responsibility  of  disarming  the  Native  In- 
fantry. 

There  would  have  been  little  difficulty  in  carrying  out  the  dis- 
armament at  once  ;  for,  as  John  Lawrence  pointed  out,  Rothney's 
Sikhs  happened  to  be  passing  at  that  very  time  through  Jullundur 
on  their  way  to  Delhi,  and  they  would  have  been  only  too  delighted 
to  be  employed  in  so  congenial  a  task.  But  they  were  allowed  to 
pass  on.  The  disarmament  was  put  off  from  hour  to  hour,  on  this 
plea  or  on  that,  till,  at  last,  on  the  night  of  the  7th,  the  rising  which 
had  been  foreseen  and  might  have  been  prevented  at  any  moment 
during  the  last  three  weeks,  took  place.  The  Sepoys,  with  that 
VOL.  II. — 5 


66  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

curious  inconsistency  which  marked  so  many  of  their  doings 
throughout  the  Mutiny,  and  which  shows  the  strong  conflicting 
currents  by  which  they  were  swayed,  cut  down  some  of  their 
officers,  while  they  carefully  sheltered  others.  And,  by  midnight, 
the  main  body  of  three  whole  regiments  was  in  full  march  for 
Phillour,  for  Loodiana,  and  for  Delhi. 

But,  even  now,  it  was  not  too  late  to  act.  For  directly  in  their 
line  of  march  rolled  the  broad  and  rapid  Sutlej,  and  while  they 
were  picking  up  another  regiment  of  mutineers,  the  long  wavering 
3rd  at  Phillour,  and  were  afterwards  endeavouring  to  cross  the. 
river,  the  pursuing  force  might  fall  upon  their  rear,  and  if  they 
failed  to  cut  them  to  pieces,  might,  at  all  events,  prevent  their 
going  on  to  Delhi  as  an  organised  force.  So,  at  least,  it  seemed  to 
the  more  daring  and  adventurous  spirits  in  the  European  force  at 
Jullundur,  and  so  it  must  seem  to  everybody  now.  But  it  was 
three  whole  hours  before  General  Johnstone  decided  on  a  pursuit 
at  all.  It  was  four  more  before  he  was  ready  to  start,  and,  when 
he  did  start,  there  was  no  real  pursuit,  but  only  a  series  of  aimless 
and  indeterminate  forward  movements  and  of  still  more  aimless  and 
indeterminate  halts.  In  fact,  while  the  would-be  pursuers  were 
lingering  at  Jullundur,  the  mutineers  had  already  reached  Phillour, 
had  fraternised  with  the  malcontent  3rd  Regiment  there,  and  were 
off  again  for  the  Sutlej.  And  while  the  pursuing  force  were  mak- 
ing inquiries  and,  shameful  to  say,  bivouacking  at  Phillour,  the 
mutineers,  by  the  help  of  a  few  crazy  boats,  were  laboriously  plac- 
ing the  river  behind  them,  an  operation  which  took  not  less  than 
thirty  hours  to  accomplish. 

But  they  were  not  to  pass  entirely  unopposed  ;  for  the  qualities 
which  were  so  conspicuously  wanting  in  General  Johnstone,  were 
to  be  found  in  double  measure  in  George  Ricketts,  a  young  civilian 
who  was  then  Deputy  Commissioner  at  Loodiana.  Hearing  from 
T.  H.  Thornton,  another  young  civilian,  of  what  was  going  on 
early  in  the  day,  Ricketts  first  took  such  precautions  as  he  could 
for  the  safety  of  the  station,  and  then  carrying  with  him,  under 
Lieutenant  Williams,  three  companies  of  Sikhs  who  had  just 
arrived,  a  couple  of  guns,  and  a  contingent  from  the  Raja  of 
Nabha,  he  sallied  forth,  hoping  that,  if  he  could  not  prevent,  he 
might  at  least  retard  the  passage  of  the  riverby  the  Sepoys  till  the 
Jullundur  force  should  fall  upon  their  rear.  He  never  doubted 
for  a  moment — nobody  could  have  doubted — that  such  a  force 
must  be  following  close  behind  them.  Taken  between  two  fires, 
and  with  a  broad  river  to  cut  them  in  two  halves,  the  destruction 


i857  MUTINY-POLICY   OF  JOHN   LAWRENCE.  6/ 

of  the  whole  would  have  been  a  certainty.  The  road  was  difficult 
and  the  sand  deep,  and  it  was  not  till  ten  at  night  that  he  reached 
the  Ghaut  and  found  that  all  but  four  hundred  of  the  enemy  had 
already  crossed.  The  horses  of  one  of  his  two  guns  took  fright  as 
it  was  being  unlimbered,  and  galloped  away  with  it  to  the  enemy 
and  the  Nabha  contingent  took  to  their  heels  at  the  first  discharge. 
But  the  intrepid  Ricketts  worked  the  remaining  gun  himself,  and 
with  the  help  of  the  two  Nabha  officers,  and  the  three  companies 
of  Sikhs,  who  also  stood  their  ground,  he  managed,  for  nearly  two 
hours,  to  maintain  the  contest  against  three  regiments,  and,  at  last, 
when  his  ammunition  was  expended,  and  when  Williams  had  been 
shot  down  at  his  side,  drew  off  his  small  remaining  force  in  good 
order  to  the  camp. 

It  was  a  fine  feat  of  arms,  and  well  might  John  Lawrence,  who 
had  sometimes  been  disposed  to  think  that  Ricketts  was  not  suffi- 
ciently at  home  in  the  work  of  a  civilian,  exclaim,  '  I  am  indeed 
proud  of  him.'  '  I  am  highly  pleased,'  he  wrote  to  Ricketts  him- 
self, shortly  afterwards,  '  with  your  energy  and  resolution.  You  did 
your  best  for  the  public  service  and  maintained  the  honour  of  your 
cloth.  ...  I  do  not  trust  myself  to  say  what  I  think  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  pursuit  was  conducted  by  Johnstone.'  And  with 
good  reason,  too,  as  the  details  of  the  miserable  failure  of  General 
Johnstone  were  revealed  to  him  day  after  day,  might  he  pour  forth 
to  all  his  correspondents  the  vials  of  his  wrath  on  the  incapacity  of 
the  General,  whom  it  was  still  proposed  to  send  to  the  Peshawur 
Division. 

General  Johnstone  (he  writes  to  Cotton)  has  made  a  nice  mess  at  Jul- 
lunclur  !  I  entreated  him,  fourteen  days  ago,  to  disarm  his  Native  regi- 
ments ;  then  not  to  allow  them  to  have  charge  of  his  treasure  ;  then  to 
be,  at  least,  ready  to  crush  them  if  they  mutinied.  But  it  was  of  no  use. 
He  would  have  his  own  way,  and  you  see  the  result.  Had  he  followed 
the  mutineers  sharp  they  would  have  been  cut  up  or  drowned  in  the 
Sutlej.  Now  they  are  on  their  way,  plundering  as  they  go,  to  join  the 
mutineers  at  Delhi.  I  trust  they  may  be  too  late  for  the  fair  and  catch  a 
Tartar. 

To  Bartle  Frere  he  writes  in  much  the  same  strain  : 

We  are  now  pretty  quiet.  The  people  are  wonderfully  well  behaved. 
Peshawur,  our  volcano,  quiescent.  .  .  .  But  our  great  misfortune  is  the 
escape  of  two  Native  Infantry  corps  and  half  a  corps  of  Regular  Cavalry 
from  Jullundur.  They  had  the  Sutlej  in  front  of  them  and  a  body  of 
European  Infantry,  Irregular  Cavalry,  and  six  guns  behind  them.  The 
distance  was  twenty  miles,  and  yet,  by  the   anility  of  Brigadier  John- 


68  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

stone,  the  mutineers  escaped  and  have  gone  to  Delhi  to  add  to  the  num- 
ber of  its  defenders.  I  do  assure  you  that  some  of  our  commanders  are 
worse  enemies  than  the  mutineers  themselves.  I  could  sometimes  almost 
believe  that  they  have  been  given  to  us  for  our  destruction. 

In  writing  to  Lord  Canning  he  naturally  took  the  opportunity  of 
clenching  the  question  as  to  General  Johnstone's  transference  to 
Peshawur. 

General  Johnstone  would  do  nothing.  He  would  not  disarm  the  Sepoys, 
and  he  made  no  arrangements  for  punishing  them.  When  they  broke 
out,  the  European  force  was  kept  on  the  defensive  ;  and  when  the  muti- 
teers  bolted  they  were  not  followed  for  eight  hours.  Even  then  they 
would  have  been  caught — for  they  were  thirty  hours  getting  across  the 
Sutlej — but  that  the  General  halted  halfway,  at  a  distance  of  twenty-five 
miles  !  And  yet  this  is  the  officer  whom  it  is  proposed  to  place  over 
Brigadier  S.  Cotton  in  the  Peshawur  Division  ! 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  it  was  not  proposed  to  place 
him  there  any  longer.  The  fourmutinous  regiments  swept  on  from 
the  Sutlej  to  Loodiana,  raised  into  a  short-lived  disturbance  its 
mixed  and  turbulent  population  of  Cabul  exiles  and  pensioners,  of 
Kashmere  shawl-makers  and  Goojur  robbers,  plundered  or  burned 
everything  on  which  they  could  lay  their  hands,  and  then,  when 
General  Johnstone  who  had  been  actually  bivouacking  in  earshot 
of  Ricketts'  desperate  cannonade,  at  length  showed  some  signs  of 
advancing,  they  passed  quietly  on  again  towards  Delhi. 

But  there  remained  one  city  in  the  Punjab  which,  commanding, 
as  it  did,  the  passage  of  the  river  from  Lahore  and  the  only  good 
road  whereby  his  province  could  still  hold  communication  with  the 
outer  world,  gave  Sir  John  Lawrence  the  deepest  anxiety.  Would 
the  authorities  at  Mooltan,  a  city  infinitely  more  important  than 
Jullundur,  and  only  less  important  than  Lahore  and  Peshawur  them- 
selves, follow  the  example  set  by  the  almost  criminal  incapacity  of 
the  officer  in  command  at  the  one,  or  would  they  emulate  the  vigour 
and  promptitude  of  both  the  civil  and  military  authorities  at  the 
other  ?  This  was  the  pressing  question,  and  the  answer  to  it  was 
plain,  if  the  Chief  Commissioner  could  have  his  way.  He  had  done 
everything  in  his  power  to  save  Jullundur.  But  the  irresolution  or 
obstinacy  of  Johnstone  had  been  too  strong  for  him.  Would  he  be 
more  successful  here  ?  Would  Colonel  Hicks,  the  chief  military 
authority  at  Mooltan,  be  willing  to  distrust,  to  disarm,  or  to  crush 
the  malcontent  Sepoys,  and  would  he  have  the  power,  even  if  he 
had  the  will  ? 


i857  MUTINY-POLICY    OF    JOHN    LAWRENCE.  69 

Sir  John  Lawrence  thought  not.  He  was  convinced  that  there 
was  only  one  man  in  the  station  who  would  be  able  to  carry  out  so 
difficult  and  dangerous  an  operation,  when  the  odds  were  so  heavy 
against  him.  General  Gowan  had  just  written  to  the  Chief  Com- 
missioner to  announce  his  assumption  of  the  chief  military  com- 
mand in  the  Punjab  which  had  been  vacated  by  General  Reed. 
Like  his  predecessor,  General  Gowan  seems  to  have  had  no  very 
marked  ability,  or  force  of  will  himself.  But  he  had  the  next  best 
thing  to  it,  a  willingness  to  appreciate  those  qualities  in  another, 
and  Sir  John  Lawrence  replied  by  a  telegram  urging,  in  the  strongest 
terms,  an  immediate  disarmament  of  the  troops  at  Mooltan,  and 
begging,  as  a  personal  favour,  that  Crawford  Chamberlain,  who  was 
in  command  of  the  first  Irregular  Cavalry,  might  be  selected  for 
the  duty. 

Besides  Chamberlain's  own  regiment,  which  consisted  of  Hindu- 
stanis, whom,  to  the  best  of  his  belief,  he  could  trust,  there  were 
two  Native  Infantry  regiments,  one  of  which  was  certainly,  the 
other  probably  tainted.  The  other  auxiliaries  were  Punjabis  but 
with  many  Hindustanis  amongst  them.  The  only  Europeans  were 
a  handful  of  forty  Artillerymen.  But  a  Bombay  regiment  was 
expected  to  arrive  in  a  few  days  from  Scinde,  and  their  presence 
would  make  the  disarmament  more  feasible.  Most  men  would 
have  been  disposed  to  wait.  But  Sir  John  Lawrence  saw  that 
time  was  everything,  that  the  news  of  the  Jullundur  mutiny  which 
had  just  reached  him  would  be  at  Mooltan  in  a  couple  of  days  at 
the  latest,  and  it  would  then  be  too  late.  His  instructions  were 
therefore  peremptory.  The  risk  was  to  be  run  at  once,  and  on  the 
morning  of  June  7,  just  before  the  news  from  Jullundur  reached 
the  station,  the  two  Infantry  regiments  were  disarmed,  without  a 
drop  of  blood  being  shed,  by  the  consummate  skill  and  courage  of 
the  man  whom  Sir  John  had  selected.  The  well-disposed  citizens 
of  Mooltan  were  able  once  again  to  breathe  freely,  and  the  rein- 
forcements, which  Frere  was  already  sending  thither,  were  enabled, 
as  they  arrived,  to  move  on,  or  to  enable  others  to  move  on  to 
points  where  the  danger  was  more  urgent  than  even  at  Mooltan. 

I  have  to  thank  you  very  heartily  (wrote  John  Lawrence  to  Crawford 
Chamberlain),  for  the  admirable  manner  in  which  you  disarmed  the 
62nd  and  69th  Native  Infantry.  It  was,  I  assure  you,  most  delightful 
news  hearing  that  it  had  been  done.  It  was  a  most  ticklish  thing,  con- 
sidering that  it  had  to  be  effected  entirely  by  native  troops.  I  shall  not 
fail  to  bring  it  to  the  special  notice  of  Government.  It  would  have 
proved  a  great  calamity  had  our  communications  with  Bombay  been 


yo  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

intercepted.      I  beg  you  will  thank  your  own  and  the  two  Punjab  corps 
for  their  good  conduct. 

Disarmament  in  fact  was  now,  in  spite  of  the  generous  .scruples 
of  some  of  the  military  authorities,  to  be,  as  far  as  possible,  the 
order  of  the  day  throughout  the  Punjab.  Sir  John  Lawrence 
placed  his  views  on  the  subject  before  General  Gowan  in  his  first 
letter  thus  : — 

If  Delhi  fall  at  once,  all  will  go  well.  But  should  much  delay  occur, 
or,  still  worse,  should  any  misfortune  happen,  we  must  be  prepared  for 
squalls.  1  do  not  myself  think  that  a  single  Poorbea  regiment  will  re- 
main faithful,  and,  in  that  case,  I  consider  that  we  should  disarm  every 
one  of  them,  where  we  have  the  means ;  that,  is  where  European  regi- 
ments are  present.  By  doing  this  we  shall  be  in  a  position  to  maintain 
ourselves  and  hold  the  country.  At  present,  with  the  Regular  Infantry 
in  their  sullen  mind,  we  are  like  a  strong  swimmer  struggling  in  a  troub- 
lous sea  with  a  man  clinging  round  his  neck  and  trying  to  drag  him 
down. 

If  we  wait  until  we  are  attacked  we  shackle  ourselves,  and  enable  our 
enemy  to  watch  his  own  opportunity  for  attack.  Such  a  policy  must 
prove  fatal. 

I  have  written  this  minute  account  of  the  first  few  weeks  of  the 
Mutiny  to  little  purpose,  if  I  have  failed  to  bring  out  the  general 
impression  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  policy  which  has  forced  itself 
upon  my  own  mind  throughout.  It  was  a  policy  almost  Hannibal- 
ian,  almost  Napoleonic  in  its  bold  and  vigorous  advance,  in  its  un- 
compromising front,  in  its  wide  sweep  of  view  ;  almost  Fabian  in 
its  prudence,  in  its  self-restraint,  in  its  moral  courage.  '  Push  on,' 
was  the  policy  he  urged  on  the  lingerers  at  Umballa,  and  the  malin- 
gerers at  Meerut.  '  Disarm,'  was  his  policy  for  Peshawur,  for  Jul- 
lundur,  for  Mooltan,  wherever  in  fact  mutinous  dispositions  seemed 
likely  to  pass  into  mutinous  acts.  '  Punishment  prompt  and  vigor- 
ous,' was  his  policy  wherever  it  seemed  necessary  as  an  example. 
But  he  never  ceased  to  urge  on  all  within  the  sphere  of  his  influence 
that  discrimination,  and  precaution,  and  prevention  could  do  more 
than  any  amount  of  vindictive  measures. 

When  the  news  of  the  massacre  prepetrated  by  the  insurgents 
from  Delhi  at  Sirsa  and  Hissar  reached  him,  what  was  the  moral  he 
drew  from  it  ?  '  These  sad  events,'  he  says,  *  might,  in  my  opinion, 
have  been  prevented  by  a  small  party  moving  from  Meerut  towards 
Delhi,  which  would  have  confined  the  mutineers  to  that  place. 
The  inactivity  of  the  Meerut  force  for  so  long  a  period  is  as  unac- 
countable as  it  is  lamentable.'     When  at  last  an   advance  from 


i857'  MUTINY-POLICY    OF   JOHN    LAWRENCE.  71 

Meerut  did  take  place,  and  he  heard  of  General  Wilson's  victory 
on  the  Hindun,  what  was  the  moral  he  drew  again  ?  '  This  success,' 
he  writes,  '  of  a  small  party  of  Europeans  proves  what  might  have 
been  done  had  more  energetic  measures  been  adopted  at  the  out- 
set. I  am  hopeful  that  his  success  may  induce  a  more  rapid 
advance.' '     '  Push  on,  push  on  !  '  was  still  his  cry. 

How  complete  was  the  success  of  his  disarmament  policy  at 
Peshawur  and  Mooltan,  where  he  was  warmly  supported  by  the 
military  authorities,  General  Cotton  and  General  Gowan,  I  have 
already  shown.  That  it  would  have  been  equally  complete  at  Jul- 
lundur  is  clear  had  he  been  able  to  command  as  well  as  to  advise  ; 
had  Government,  that  is  to  say,  given  him  the  *  full  powers '  for 
which  he  asked,  and  so  enabled  him  to  get  rid  of  the  incompetent, 
and  bring  ability  and  vigour  at  all  hazards,  to  the  front. 

Nor  was  he  less  anxious  to  save  the  innocent,  to  put  the  well- 
disposed  beyond  the  reach  of  temptation,  to  ease  the  position  of 
those  who,  trustworthy  themselves,  were  nevertheless  obliged,  for 
the  time,  to  suffer  with  the  guilty.  In  this  spirit  he  wrote  to  the 
Commander-in-Chief  at  Umballa  advising  him  to  summon  all  the 
men  of  the  Irregular  Cavalry  who  were  on  furlough  at  the  time  of 
the  outbreak,  and  would  therefore  be  liable  to  be  carried  away  by  it, 
to  Meerut  and  enrol  them  there  under  competent  officers.  It  was  a 
step  which  if  it  had  been  taken  at  once,  would,  peradventure,  have 
saved  many  well-meaning  men  from  their  own  weakness,  and  have 
prevented  one  of  Hodson's  darkest  deeds. 

It  was  in  the  same  spirit  that  he  wrote  to  Lord  Canning,  as  I  have 
already  shown,  suggesting  what  might  well  have  proved  a  master 
stroke  of  policy,  that  any  Sepoys  who  desired  it  should  be  allowed 
to  take  their  discharge.  The  evil  disposed,  he  thought,  would  avail 
themselves  of  the  permission  and  become  powerless  thereby,  while 
the  good  would  remain  and  become  doubly  serviceable.  It  was  in 
the  same  spirit,  once  more,  that  he  advised  General  Corbett  at 
Lahore,  and  General  Cotton  at  Peshawur,  to  give  back  their  arms 
to  such  Sikh,  or  Punjabi  Mohammedans,  or  Hill-men,  as  had  be- 

'  I  owe  these  and  some  other  extracts  from  the  official  dispatches  of  Sir  John 
Lawrence  to  the  kindness  of  Sir  Robert  Egerton,  the  late  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  the  Punjab,  and  to  Mr.  Arthur  Brandreth,  who  will  be  frequently  mentioned 
hereafter  in  this  biography,  and  has  taken  the  trouble,  in  the  midst  of  his  other 
work  in  India,  of  copying  them  out  for  me.  The  demi-official  letters  on  which 
my  narrative  is  mainly  founded,  and  which  are  much  more  valuable  for  the  pur- 
pose I  have  in  view,  as  having  been  written  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  and 
showing  the  inner  character  of  the  man,  are  all  in  my  possession. 


^2  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

haved  well,  to  separate  them  from  their  Hindustani  comrades  and 
allow  them  once  again  to  do  duty.  '  I  suggest  this,'  he  says,  '  first, 
because  I  understand  that  they  have  no  sympathy  with  their 
Poorbea  comrades  and  have  already  expressed  their  willingness  to 
do  their  duty.  I  know  also  from  the  testimony  of  the  officers  of 
the  55lh  Native  Infantry  that  the  men  of  these  races  in  that  regi- 
ment, to  the  number  of  one  hundred,  offered  to  stand  by  their 
officers  and  fight  the  rest  of  the  regiment.'  This  important  measure 
was  carried  out  thoughout  his  province,  and  the  nucleus  of  new  and 
valuable  Sikh  corps  was  thus  obtained.  One  hundred  Sikhs  who 
had  thus  been  separated  from  their  companions,  by  Sir  John's  order, 
the  day  before  the  disarmament  at  Jhelum,  did  stand  by  their 
officers  on  the  day  of  trial  and  fought  splendidly.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  say  how  many  innocent  men  were  saved  by  this  stroke 
of  policy,  which  was  all  his  own,  from  mutiny  and  massacre. 

Finally,  finding  that  the  Commander-in-Chief  neglected  to  issue 
any  general  proclamation  which  was  calculated  to  recall  the  waver- 
ing to  their  allegiance  and  to  remind  them  of  our  real  power,  he 
himself  drew  up  a  well-timed  manifesto  on  June  i,  which  was  posted 
and  circulated  at  all  the  stations  of  his  province. 

Sepoys, — You  will  have  heard  that  many  Sepoys  and  Sowars  of  the 
Bengal  army  have  proved  faithless  to  their  salt  at  Meerut,  at  Delhi,  and 
Ferozepore.  Many  at  the  latter  place  have  been  already  punished.  An 
army  is  assembled  and  is  now  close  to  Delhi,  prepared  to  punish  the 
mutineers  and  insurgents  who  have  collected  there. 

Sepoys, — I  warn  and  advise  you  to  prove  faithful  to  your  salt  ;  faithful 
to  the  Government  who  have  given  your  forefathers  and  you  service  for 
the  last  hundred  years  ;  faithful  to  that  Government  who,  both  in  can- 
tonments and  in  the  field,  have  been  careful  of  your  welfare  and  inter- 
ests, and  who,  iu  your  old  age,  have  given  you  the  means  of  living  com- 
fortably in  your  homes.  Those  who  have  studied  history  know  well 
that  DO  army  has  ever  been  more  kindly  treated  than  that  of  India. 

Those  regiments  which  now  remain  faithful  will  receive  the  rewards 
due  to  their  constancy  ;  those  soldiers  who  fall  away  now  will  lose  their 
service  for  ever  !  It  will  be  too  late  to  lament  hereafter  when  the  time 
has  passed  by.  Now  is  the  opportunity  of  proving  your  loyalty  and  good 
faith.  The  British  Government  will  never  want  for  native  soldiers.  In 
a  month  it  might  raise  50,000  in  the  Punjab  alone.  If  the  '  Poorbea ' 
Sepoy  neglects  the  present  day,  it  will  never  return.  There  is  ample 
force  in  the  Punjab  to  crush  all  mutineers. 

The  chiefs  and  people  are  loyal  and  obedient,  and  the  latter  only  long 
to  take  your  place  in  the  army.  All  will  unite  to  crush  you.  Moreover, 
the  Sepoy  can  have  no  conception  of  the  power  of  England.  Already, 
from  every  quarter,  English  soldiers  are  pouring  into  India. 


i857  MUTINY-POLICY   OF   JOHN    LAWRENCE.  73 

You  know  well  enough  that  the  British  Government  have  never  inter- 
fered with  your  religion.  Those  who  tell  you  the  contrary  say  it  for 
their  own  base  purposes.  The  Hindu  temple  and  the  Mohammedan 
mosque  have  both  been  respected  by  the  English  Government.  It  was 
but  the  other  day  that  the  Jumma  mosque  at  Lahore,  which  had  cost  lacs 
of  rupees,  and  which  the  Sikhs  had  converted  into  a  magazine,  was  re- 
stored to  the  Mohammedans. 

Sepoys, — My  advice  is  that  you  obey  your  officers.  Seize  all  those  who 
among  yourselves  endeavour  to  mislead  you.  Let  not  a  few  bad  men  be 
the  cause  of  your  disgrace.  If  you  have  the  will,  you  can  easily  do  this, 
and  Government  will  consider  it  a  test  of  your  fidelity.  Prove  by  your 
conduct  that  the  loyalty  of  the  Sepoy  of  Hindustan  has  not  degenerated 
from  that  of  his  ancestors. 

John  Lawrence, 
Chief  Commissioner, 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   PUNJAB   AND   DELHI. 
Junk — July,   1857. 

I  HAVE  now  brought  my  narrative  of  the  measures  taken  by  Sir 
John  Lawrence  for  the  protection  of  the  frontier  of  his  province,  for 
the  strengthening  of  its  forts  and  arsenals,  for  the  disarmament  and 
safe-keeping  of  its  mutinous  Sepoys,  for  the  raising  and  the  distri- 
bution of  fresh  troops,  and  for  the  carrying  on  of  its  ordinary  ad- 
ministration, to  the  point  of  time  which  I  had  reached  at  the  close 
of  my  first  chapter,  when  such  progress  had  been  made  towards  the 
attaining  of  his  more  distant,  but,  certainly,  not  less  important  or 
less  arduous  object,  as  the  appearance  of  the  Field  Force  before 
Delhi  might  be  considered  to  imply.  Mutiny  was  now,  no  longer, 
to  rear  its  head  unmolested  in  the  capital  of  the  Moguls.  Resist- 
ance was  to  be  opposed  to  its  further  progress  from  Delhi  as  a 
centre.  And  if  fresh  bodies  of  mutineers  were  still  able  to  flock, 
without  let  or  hindrance,  into  the  city  on  five-sixths  of  its  circum- 
ference, they  would,  at  least,  see  as  they  looked  northwards  from  its 
ramparts,  the  British  flag  flying  on  the  adjoining  Ridge,  and  would 
know  that  the  cantonments  behind  that  Ridge,  from  which  our 
ofificers  had  been  driven  amidst  scenes  of  rapine  and  murder  a  few 
weeks  before,  now  contained  the  nucleus  of  a  British  force,  who 
were  resolved  to  hold  them  till  iDelhi  fell,  against  all  comers. 

It  may  further  be  observed  that  it  was  on  the  very  same  day 
which  witnessed  the  disarmament  of  the  Sepoys  at  Mooltan,  that 
the  Delhi  Field  Force  first  received  ocular  demonstration,  by  the 
arrival  of  the  Guides  among  them,  of  what  Sir  John  Lawrence 
had  already  done,  was  doing,  and  was  going  to  do  in  furtherance 
of  their  great  enterprise  ;  and  that  it  was  on  the  following  day  again, 
that  the  great  Punishment  Parade  took  place  at  Peshawur,  which, 
as  I  have  already  shown,  was  changed  by  his  remonstrances  from  a 
wholesale  and  indiscriminate  slaughter  into  an  act  of  judicial  retri- 
bution.    It  would  be  difficult  to  say  which  of  the  three  operations, 

74 


i857  THE    PUNJAB   AND    DELHI.  75 

all  completed  within  twenty-four  hours  of  each  other,  and  at  the 
most  opposite  corners  of  the  sphere  of  his  influence,  the  disarma- 
ment at  Mooltan,  the  arrival  of  the  Guides  at  Delhi,  of  the  punish- 
ment parade  at  Peshawur,  was  most  characteristic  of  the  man  and 
of  his  work.  But,  taken  altogether,  they  form  a  sufficiently  striking 
picture  of  that  combination  of  mind  with  matter,  of  patience  with 
promptitude,  of  wide  views  with  the  minutest  grasp  of  details,  of 
judicial  calmness  with  irrepressible  energy,  which  marked  him 
throughout,  which  made  him  a  head  and  shoulders  taller  than  even 
the  ablest  and  most  energetic  of  his  subordinates,  and  enabled  him 
to  guide  the  ship  through  the  storm  without,  as  it  seems  to  me,  giv- 
ing a  single  order,  or  writing  a  single  letter,  or  authorising  a  single 
course  of  action,  which  need  shrink  from  the  full  light  of  day,  or 
which,  as  we  look  back  at  it  calmly  at  this  distance  of  time,  we  can 
say  ought,  under  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  to  have  remained 
unspoken,  unwritten,  or  undone. 

It  was  on  the  morning  of  June  9  that  the  Guides  arrived  before 
Delhi.  They  had  accomplished  a  distance  of  five  hundred  and 
eighty  miles  in  twenty-two  days,  and  that  too  at  the  very  hottest 
season  of  the  year.  There  had  been  but  three  halts  during  the 
whole  march,  and  those  only  by  special  order.  It  was  a  march 
hitherto  unequalled  in  India,  and  in  point  of  speed — an  average  of 
twenty-seven  miles  a  day — it  is,  I  believe,  unequalled  still.  Un- 
fortunately, they  arrived  just  too  late  for  the  battle  of  Budli-ki- 
Serai.  An  ill-timed  requisition  by  Sir  Theophilus  Metcalfe,  who 
had  escaped  with  his  bare  life  from  Delhi,  had  called  them  aside 
from  the  nobler  object  which  lay  in  front,  to  the  less  congenial 
work  of  burning  some  villages  which  lay  along  their  line  of  march. 
But  on  the  morning  following  the  battle,  before  any  siege  operations 
had  begun,  they  came  in,  travel-stained,  but  not  travel-worn,  light 
of  heart  and  light  of  step,  proud  of  their  mission,  of  their  leader, 
and  of  their  march,  the  vanguard  of  the  long  succession  of  rein- 
forcements which  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  to  pour  down  on  Delhi, 
and  were  welcomed,  as  well  they  might  be,  with  ringing  cheers  by 
the  small  force  of  which  they  were  henceforward  to  form  so  con- 
spicuous a  part.  Nor  had  they  been  in  camp  more  than  a  few 
hours,  when  they  crossed  swords  with  the  enemy's  cavalry,  and 
drove  them  back  in  disorder  right  up  to  the  city  walls.  They  were 
unfortunate  in  one  thing  only,  that  Quentin  Battye,  the  second  in 
command,  a  young  officer  of  rare  promise  and  of  conspicuous 
courage,  fell  mortally  wounded  in  the  charge. 

The  gallant  Guides — those,  at  least  of  them  who  were  married — • 


76  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

had  felt  one  cause  of  anxiety  during  the  early  part  of  their  march, 
which  Sir  John  Lawrence  himself  had  managed  to  remove.  They 
had  been  obliged  to  leave  their  wives  and  children  behind  them  at 
Murdan  ;  and  these — as  many  an  anxious  husband  or  father  thought 
— might  be  exposed  to  injury  or  insult  at  the  hands  of  the  dis- 
affected Sepoys,  or  the  wild  borderers,  who  were  their  nearest 
neighbours.  The  corps  was  ordered  to  halt  at  Rawul  Pindi,  that 
the  Chief  Commissioner  might  bid  them  God-speed,  and  that  their 
leader,  Henry  Daly,  might  hold  counsel  with  him,  with  Neville 
Chamberlain,  and  with  Herbert  Edwardes,  who  had,  just  then, 
gathered  there.  Daly — who,  by  a  somewhat  curious  coincidence, 
at  the  moment  when  I  revise  this  portion  of  my  work,  is  engaged 
in  the  task  of  piloting  safely  among  the  sights  and  sounds  of  Lon- 
don, the  officers  and  men  of  the  Indian  contingent,  a  task  which 
must  vividly  remind  him  of  the  Babel  of  races,  languages,  and  re- 
ligions, with  which  he  was  brought  into  contact  when  he  was  in 
command  of  the  Guides — mentioned  the  anxieties  of  his  men  to 
John  Lawrence,  who  at  once  promised  to  call  their  wives  and 
families  down  to  Rawul  Pindi,  and  look  after  them  there  himself  ! 
And  a  letter  of  his  to  Daly,  which  must  have  caught  up  the  regi- 
ment at  Umballa  or  thereabouts,  will  show  that  he  was  as  good  as 
his  word.  '  I  hope  this  will  find  you  all  safe,  and  that  you  will  not 
be  too  late  for  the  fight  at  Delhi.  I  send  you  a  list  of  the  ladies 
of  your  regiment  who  have  arrived  at  this  place  from  Murdan. 
They  are  all  safe,  under  my  protection,  in  my  compound.  I  will 
give  them  the  sums  noted  out  of  their  husbands'  pay,  or  until  I 
hear  from  you.  If  the  husbands  propose  any  alteration,  let  me 
know  the  specific  sums  which  each  is  to  receive  monthly.' 

There  are,  as  it  seems  to  me,  few  more  picturesque  or  character- 
istic incidents  in  Sir  John  Lawrence's  life  than  this.  The  Chief 
Commissioner  'having  the  care,'  like  the  Apostle  of  old,  'of  all  the 
churches,'  overworked  and  ill  in  health,  and  yet  playing  the  part  of 
a  humble  deacon  in  the  early  church,  and  himself  seeing  that  'the 
widows,'  aye,  and  the  wives  and  children,  were  not  neglected  in 
'  the  daily  ministration  ;  '  the  '  ladies  of  the  regiment,'  belonging 
to,  perhaps,  a  dozen  different  tribes,  and  speaking  half-a-dozen  dif- 
ferent dialects,  but  all  safe  under  his  eye,  all  having  the  run  of  his 
compound,  and  receiving  each,  from  his  own  hand,  month  by 
month,  the  exact  sums  which  their  more  thrifty,  or  their  more 
liberally  disposed,  husbands  before  Delhi  might  be  willing  to  en- 
trust to  them  !  There  was,  of  course,  a  humorous  side  to  the  scene, 
which  Sir  John  Lawrence  himself  would  be  the  first  to  appreciate. 


i857  THE   PUNJAB   AND   DELHI.  77 

But  if  genius  is  '  an  infinite  capacity  for  taking  trouble,'  here,  cer- 
tainly, was  something  of  genius  ;  and  if  true  religion  consists  '  in 
visiting  the  fatherless  and  the  widows  in  their  afifliction,'  here  was 
more  than  something  of  true  religion. 

And  it  may  be  worth  while  to  remark  here  that  there  is  often 
something  of  tenderness,  or  even  of  a  fatherly  solicitude,  in  the  way 
in  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  writes  and  speaks  of  this  wild  and 
uncouth  regiment.  '  Pray  tell  the  Guides,'  he  writes  to  Daly  after 
their  first  success,  '  how  delighted  I  am  with  their  good  conduct.' 

'  I  am  much  afraid,'  he  writes  on  another  occasion,  when  they 
had  fought  and  won  against  terrible  odds,  '  that  the  poor  Guides 
have  suffered  greatly.  What  with  the  enemy  and  cholera,  their 
ranks  must  have  been  fearfully  thinned.  Try  a?id  get  them  to  keep 
themselves  clean  ajid  dry.  These  are  great  safeguards  against  cholera.' 

When  Delhi  had  been  taken,  and  the  Guides  had  done  their  part 
towards  it  right  well,  there  was  no  regiment,  or  remnant  of  a  regi- 
ment, which  he  was  so  anxious  to  get  back  into  the  Punjab  again. 
*  Let  the  Guides  come  back,'  he  wrote,  *if  you  can  spare  them.  I 
shall  be  glad  to  see  their  old  battered  faces  again.' 

There  is  a  ring  of  tenderness  about  these  extracts  which,  coming 
from  the  man  who  wrote  them,  is  certainly  noteworthy.  Something 
of  it  may  have  been  due  to  the  strong  affection  which  he  felt  for 
Harry  Lumsden,  who  had  originally  raised,  and  for  Henry  Daly, 
who  novv  led  them ;  something  also  to  the  wild,  and  adventurous, 
and  uncanny  character  of  the  men  themselves  ;  a  character  with 
which,  in  his  earlier  days  at  least,  he  would  have  had  much  sym- 
pathy. But  even  more,  I  think,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  regi- 
ment of  Guides  owed  its  existence  to  the  fertile  and  ever  active 
brain  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  who  still  showed,  in  his  letters  to  his 
brother,  a  lively  interest  in  their  welfare. 

When  I  came  down  with  the  Guides  (said,  in  conversation  with  me, 
Sir  Henry  Daly,  a  great  friend  of  botli  brothers),  we  halted  for  a  day  at 
Rawul  Pindi,  that  I  might  confer  with  Sir  John.  About  four  or  five 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  when  we  were  about  to  start,  I  went  in  to  bid 
him  good-bye.  He  was  then  lying  on  his  bed  in  terrible  suffering  from 
tic.  '  Ah  ! '  he  said  to  me,  as  I  was  leaving  the  room,  '  you  will,  very 
likely,  see  my  brother  Henry  before  I  do.  He  has  a  terrible  job  down 
there  at  Lucknow.'  Throughout  that  afternoon  a  succession  of  gloomy 
telegrams  had  been  coming  in  to  Sir  John  Lawrence,  telling  him  that  the 
Residencv  at  Lucknow  was  beleaguered,  and  the  whole  country  was 
'up.'  'Tell  him  so  and  so,'  said  Sir  John,  and  then  came  a  string  of 
very  kindly  messages.     '  Ah,  well ! '   he  ended  up  pathetically,  and  I 


78  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

fancy  that  I  can,  even  now,  see  his  big  burly  body  lying  on  the  bed  as  he 
said  it.    'Ah,  well  !  Henry  had  a  greater  grip  on  men  than  I  ever  had  !' 

And  so  Daly  passed  on  to  Delhi,  laden  with  fraternal  messages 
to  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  which  were  never  destined  to  be  delivered. 
But  the  drift  of  a  few  remarks  of  his,  dropped  in  the  course  of  the 
same  conversation  with  reference  to  the  Lawrence  brothers  and 
some  of  their  surroundings,  seem  to  me  well  worth  reproducing 
here. 

When  I  saw  my  chief,  seven  years  afterwards,  as  Viceroy  at  Simla,  I 
found  him  the  same  simple  John  Lawrence  as  of  old.  '  Do  you  remem- 
ber,' I  asked  him,  '  what  you  said  to  me  about  your  brother  Henry  at 
Rawul  Pindi,  as  I  was  going  down  with  the  Guides  ? '  '  Oh,  yes,'  he 
replied,  '  it  was  quite  true.  Henry  had  a  greater  grip  of  men  than  I 
have.'  The  Lawrences  were  not  like  other  men,  nor  were  they  like  each 
other.  Their  powers  were  very  different.  '  If  I  were  dealing  with  a  new 
country,'  said  Edwardes  to  me  once,  '  I  would  take  Henry  through  it 
first,  and  he  should  say  what  was  to  be  done  ;  and  then  I  would  leave 
John  to  carry  it  out  and  to  modify  it.'  I  had  seen  Henry  at  Lucknow  in 
the  April  previous.  He  had  asked  me  to  pay  him  a  visit ;  though,  as  he 
warned  me,  he  had  only  one  knife  and  fork  to  his  name  !  The  Mutiny 
was  then  brewing  apace,  and  he  was  busy,  taking  every  possible  precau- 
tion, fortifying  the  Muchi  Bawn,  &c.  He  was  much  altered  from  what 
I  remembered  him  in  the  Punjab.  Knowing  that  I  was  going  on  to 
Lahore,  he  gave  me  many  messages  to  his  brother  John,  all  of  them  kind 
ones.  But  he  laid  most  stress  of  all  ou  a  reminder  which  I  was  to  give 
him  to  be  very  gentle  and  considerate  in  dealing  with  the  Sirdars.  '  Ah, 
yes,' said  John,  when  I  gave  him  the  message,  '  that  was  always  Henry's 
way.'  Nicholson's  boundless  devotion  to  Henry  always  made  him  rather 
stiff  and  unfriendly  to  John.  He  was  unable  to  appreciate  even  the  magna- 
nimity evidenced  in  those  letters  partly  of  gentle  rebuke,  partly  of  admira- 
tion, which  came  to  him  when  he  was  moving  down  towards  Delhi.  'I 
don't  want  long  yarns  from  you  ;  but  just  write  me  a  line  or  two,  that  I 
may  know  what  you  are  doing.'  '  If  I  could  knight  you,  I  would  do  so 
on  the  spot.'  John  never  deserted  any  friend  of  Henry's  if  he  could  pos- 
sibly keep  him,  and  hence  his  wonderful  forbearance  with  Nicholson. 
He  knew  perfectly  well  that  Nicholson  did  not  like  him  and  spoke 
against  him.  But  such  things  never  made  the  slightest  difference  in 
his  behaviour  to  him  or  to  any  one  else.  He  had  nothing  mean  or  small 
in  his  nature  ;  no  spite  or  malice.  He  was  the  biggest  man  I  have  ever 
known.  We  used  to  call  him  '  King  John  '  on  the  frontier,  and  it  is  as 
such  that  I  still  love  to  think  of  him. 

The  Movable  Column,  the  command  of  which  had  been  given, 
as  I  have  related,  to  Neville  Chamberlain,  had  by  this  time,  passed 
on  from  Rawul  Pindi  to  Jhelum  and  Wuzeerabad,  and  was  nearing 


i8S7  THE   PUNJAB   AND    DELHI.  79 

Lahore.  Chamberlain  had  been  invested  by  General  Anson,  for 
the  purposes  of  his  command,  with  the  rank  of  Brigadier-General. 
Otherwise,  all  his  movements  would  have  been  hampered,  and  the 
object  for  which  the  Column  had  been  formed  would  have  been  de- 
feated. He  would  have  been  unable  to  enter  any  military  station 
without  the  leave  of  the  Brigadier  commanding  it,  and  when  he  had 
done  so,  he  would  have  been  subject  to  his  authority.  The  Column 
reached  Lahore  on  June  4,  and  its  presence  was  taken  advantage 
of  to  put  the  finishing  touch  to  the  bold  measure  of  disarmament 
which  had  been  carried  out  on  May  13.  The  Eighth  Light  Cav- 
alry Regiment  had  been  disarmed,  but  had  not,  as  yet,  been  dis- 
mounted. They  might,  therefore,  still  be  formidable,  and  there 
•were  some  indications  that  they  were  disposed  to  be  so.  By  skil- 
ful arrangement  they  were  now  deprived  of  their  horses,  without 
bloodshed,  though  not  without  disorder.  A  few  days  afterwards 
the  Jullundur  rising  took  place,  and  Chamberlain  hurried  off  with 
his  column  to  Umritsur,  which  he  reached  in  two  forced  marches  ; 
in  time,  that  is,  to  anticipate  any  rising  on  the  part  of  its  excitable 
inhabitants,  and  to  make  Govindghur  secure  against  attack. 

But  now  the  news  of  the  death  of  Colonel  Chester,  Adjutant- 
General  of  the  army  before  Delhi,  reached  Sir  John  Lawrence.  He 
knew  well  how  valuable  Chamberlain's  services  were  to  him  in  the 
Punjab.  But  he  felt  that  they  would  be  more  valuable  still  at 
Delhi.  And,  with  his  usual  self-abnegation,  he  telegraphed  to 
Reed,  offering  to  allow  either  Chamberlain  or  Nicholson  to  fill  the 
vacant  place,  and  stipulating  only  that,  if  Chamberlain  were  taken, 
Nicholson,  despite  all  considerations  of  seniority  and  age — for  he 
was  only  a  regimental  captain — should  succeed,  per  saliuni,  to  the 
command  of  the  Column,  with  the  rank  of  Brigadier-General.  It 
was  no  time  for  considerations  of  military  etiquette  or  precedency. 
Tools  must  go,  as  in  times  of  revolution  and  great  emergency  they 
seldom  fail  to  go,  to  him  who  can  best  handle  them.  And  thus, 
though  it  is  not  strictly  accurate  to  say,  as  has  been  said  in  so  many 
books  on  the  Mutiny,  and  in  so  many  obituary  notices  of  Lord 
Lawrence,  that  he  himself,  by  his  own  authority,  promoted  Captain 
Nicholson  to  the  rank  of  Brigadier-General,  *  an  appointment  which 
he  had  no  more  legal  right  to  make,  than  to  make  him  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  ;  '  yet  it  is  strictly  true  to  say  that  the  bold  idea 
originated  with  him  ;  that  it  was  registered  by  General  Reed,  as 
indeed  were  nearly  all  Sir  John  Lawrence's  wishes  and  ideas  by 
the  military  authorities  ;  and  that  the  appointment  was,  with  few 
exceptions,  cordially  acquiesced  in  by  the  officers  who  found  them- 


80  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

selves  superseded.  Few  more  striking  proofs  of  the  command- 
ing personal  qualities,  and  of  the  confidence  which  Sir  John  Law- 
rence inspired,  can  be  found  than  this.  '  John  Nicholson  is  worthy, 
and  Sir  John  Lawrence  has  ordered  it,'  and  there  the  matter  ended. 
And  it  has  been  remarked  in  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  appreci- 
ative obituary  notices  of  John  Lawrence,  from  which  the  sentence 
I  have  just  quoted  comes/  that  to  such  an  extent  did  soldiers  be- 
lieve in  him,  that  '  it  was  often  said  that  he  was  the  single  civilian 
in  the  empire  who  could  have  taken  command  of  an  army  without 
the  resignation  of  any  officer  in  it  ! ' 

Thus  it  happened  that  the  two  men  whom,  by  his  unvarying  tact 
and  temper,  the  Chief  Commissioner  had  managed  to  retain  in  his 
province  till  this  hour,  now  stepped  at  a  bound,  by  his  suggestion 
or  his  fiat,  the  one  from  his  command  of  the  Frontier  Force,  the 
other  from  his  regimental  captaincy,  into  posts  of  the  highest  re- 
sponsibility and  importance.  The  first  became  a  leading  spirit,  till 
he  was  incapacitated  by  a  wound,  in  the  operations  of  the  siege  of 
Delhi.  The  second,  after  performing  with  his  column  what  we  may 
well  call  prodigies  of  speed,  of  skill,  and  of  valour  in  the  Punjab, 
was  to  move  down,  at  last,  at  its  head  to  Delhi  and  to  bear  a  large 
part  in  the  final  operations  before  its  walls,  as  well  as  in  its  assault 
and  capture. 

Neville  Chamberlain  reached  Delhi  on  June  24.  His  arrival  had 
been  anxiously  looked  for,  and  was  warmly  welcomed  by  everyone 
in  the  camp  from  Sir  Henry  Barnard  to  the  private  soldier.  *  Every- 
thing will  go  right,'  men  said,  Svhen  Chamberlain  comes  ;'  while 
cooler  heads,  men  who  did  not  think  that  the  walls  of  Delhi  would 
fall  down,  like  the  walls  of  Jericho,  even  at  the  arrival  of  Neville 
Chamberlain,  said  that  his  presence  there  would  be  worth  a  thou- 
sand men.  Nor  did  he  come  alone.  With  him  was  Alexander 
Taylor  of  the  Bengal  Engineers,  who  had  been  in  charge,  under 
Robert  Napier,  for  many  years  past,  of  one  of  the  greatest  works 
of  the  English  in  India,  the  prolongation  of  the  Grand  Trunk  Road, 
and  had  succeeded  in  carrying  it  almost  from  Lahore  to  Peshawur, 
a  distance  of  256  miles.  Taylor  had  served  through  both  Sikh 
wars  ;  had  been  with  Robert  Napier  at  the  siege  of  Mooltan  ;  and 
had  joined  Gilbert  in  his  wild  ride  after  the  Afghans  from  Gujerat 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Khyber.  On  the  annexation  of  the  Punjab,  he 
had  settled  down  to  the  more  monotonous  but  not  less  important 
work  of  road  making,  and  had,  ever  since  then,  been  working  away 

'  Spectator,  July  5,   1879. 


i857  THE   PUNJAB    AND    DELHI.  8l 

at  it  under  the  high  pressure  which  was  characteristic  of  the  Punjab 
administration.  It  was  a  work  encompassed  by  difficulties  of  every 
kind.  There  was  not  a  road  in  the  country,  nor  a  map,  *  When  I 
was  told,'  he  said,  '  that  I  had  to  make  a  road  to  Wuzeerabad  or 
Jhelum,  the  first  question  that  occurred  to  me  was,  where  are  they, 
and  how  can  I  best  find  them  ? '  The  work  was  to  be  done  single- 
handed.  He  had  to  be  his  own  draughtsman  and  his  own  clerk, 
his  own  surveyor  and  leveller.  He  had  to  raise  by  a  'process  of 
gentle  compulsion  '  the  labourers  from  the  surrounding  districts,  to 
organise  them  and  pay  them  with  his  own  hands  ;  he  had  to  keep 
the  accounts,  which  were  sufficiently  complicated,  and — a  practice 
which  was  much  more  honoured  in  the  breach  than  the  observance 
— to  send  them  in  punctually  to  his  superior.  He  thus  came  in  for 
his  share  of  the  economical  pressure  and  the  economical  displeasure 
which  fell  to  the  lot  of  Napier  and  all  those  about  him.  And  from 
some  suggestive  conversations  which  I  have  had  with  him,  I  may 
recall  the  substance  of  a  few  remarks  which  give  at  once  a  vivid 
and  a  pathetic  picture  of  the  Punjab  and  of  its  chiefs. 

John  Lawrence  was  no  doubt  a  hard  task-master.  He  lived  under 
the  highest  pressure  of  work  himself,  and  expected  everyone  under  him 
to  do  the  same.  Nor  was  he  often  disappointed.  He  came  up,  once  a 
year,  to  inspect  the  progress  of  the  Grand  Trunk  Road,  and  woe  be  to 
you  if  an  unlucky  heap  of  stones  happened  to  be  left  where  it  ought  not, 
and  his  buggy  came  into  contact  with  it  !  It  was  his  business,  he  thought, 
not  so  much  to  praise  you  for  what  had  been  done,  as  to  find  out  what 
may  have  been  left  undone.  Still,  if  he  was  pleased  with  you,  he  took 
care  to  let  you  know  it.  He  would  listen  to  your  defence,  give  you  a 
good  rap  if  you  deserved  it,  and  take  back  plain  speaking  from  you  too. 
He  and  Napier  resembled  one  another  in  this,  that  they  left  ample  scope 
for  individuality  and  independence  in  their  subordinates.  We  could  not 
help  catching  the  spirit  of  work  and  duty  from  them  both.  Henry 
Lawrence  first  won  our  affections,  and  then  John  gave  us  the  spirit  of 
order,  and  method,  and  work.  The  two  brothers  managed  to  gather 
and  to  keep  a  fine  set  of  men  around  them.  Montgomery,  Edwardes, 
Nicholson,  Chamberlain,  Becher,  Reynell  Taylor,  Harry  Lumsden,  and 
others,  were  all  good  men,  and  all  worked  with  a  will.  There  was  very 
little  jealousy  in  the  mean  sense  of  the  word  amongst  us.  But  it  was 
only  natural  that  two  such  masterful  spirits  as  John  Lawrence  and  Robert 
Napier,  and  still  more  as  John  Lawrence  and  Nicholson,  who  was  tur- 
bulent and  imperious  to  a  degree,  should  not  get  on  in  the  same  sphere. 
As  for  Henry  and  John  Lawrence,  they  were  both  earnest  spirits,  each 
meaning  right  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  and  neither  of  them  could 
or  would  yield  to  the  other.  There  was  a  glow  of  work  and  duty  round 
us  all  in  the  Punjab  in  those  days,  such  as  I  have  never  felt  before  or 
VOL.  n. — 6 


82  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

since.  I  well  remember  the  reaction  of  feeling  when  I  went  on  furlough 
to  England,  the  want  of  pressure  of  any  kind,  the  self-seeking,  the  want 
of  high  aims  which  seemed  to  dull  and  dwarf  you.  You  went  back 
again  lowered  several  pegs,  saddened  altogether.  The  atmosphere  was 
different. 

One  incident  connected  Avith  the  *  turbulent  and  imperious ' 
Nicholson,  and  told  me  by  Taylor  himself,  may,  in  view  of  the  way 
in  which  the  two  men  were  henceforward  to  be  thrown  together  in 
a  common  cause,  find  a  place  here  ;  the  more  so,  as  the  very  exist- 
ence of  the  sect  of  worshippers  to  whom  it  relates,  has  sometimes 
been  called  in  question.  *  One  day,'  said  Sir  Alexander  Taylor, 
'  while  I  was  sitting  in  my  small  bungalow  at  Hussan  Abdul,  half- 
way between  Rawul  Pindi  and  Attock,  some  twenty  helmeted  men, 
very  quaintly  dressed,  filed  in  one  after  another,  and  after  a  courte- 
ous salute,  squatted  down  in  a  row  opposite  tome  without  speaking 
a  word.  I  was  much  taken  aback  at  this  strange  apparition.  I 
looked  at  them  and  they  at  me,  till,  at  last,  one  of  them  gave  utter- 
ance to  their  thoughts  and  objects.  'We  are  Nikkul  Seyn's  Fakirs  ; 
you  are  a  white  Sahib  ;  and  we  are  come  to  pay  our  respects  to  you 
as  one  of  Nikkul  Seyn's  race.  Taylor  had  never  even  heard  of 
the  existence  of  this  strange  sect  before.  After  a  little  conversa- 
tion, he  dismissed  them  ;  and  they  passed  on  southward  in  the 
direction  of  Dera  Ismael  Khan,  where  the  object  of  their  adoration 
was  then  to  be  found.  He  gave  them,  as  he  always  did,  a  good  flog- 
ging for  their  pains.  But,  as  in  the  case  of  Paul  and  Barnabas  at 
Lystra,  the  more  he  protested  and  the  more  he  punished  them,  the 
more,  a  great  deal,  they  worshipped  him  ! 

Another  highly  characteristic  story,  told  me,  for  obvious  reasons, 
not  by  the  hero  of  it,  but  by  an  equally  unexceptionable  authority, 
Edward  Thornton,  of  the  way  in  which  Alexander  Taylor  came  to 
be  sent  to  Delhi,  must  not  be  omitted.  He  had  been  working  away 
throughout  the  first  month  of  the  Mutiny  as  though  pickaxes  and 
spades  and  theodolites,  not  swords  and  bayonets  and  heavy  guns 
were  the  order  of  the  day.  His  work  was  on  the  Grand  Trunk 
Road,  but  his  heart  was  far  away  at  Delhi,  and,  from  day  to  day, 
he  picked  up  such  small  driblets  of  news  as  to  what  was  going  on 
there,  as  the  Chief  Commissioner,  who  was  receiving  telegrams  from 
all  parts  of  the  country  and  sending  them  off,  thought  it  safe  to 
divulge.  One  day,  Edward  Thornton,  who  was  the  Commissioner 
of  the  District,  seeing  Taylor  at  his  usual  task-work,  said  to  him  : 
*  Why  Taylor,  you  ought  to  be  at  Delhi  working  in  the  trenches  in- 
stead of  on  this  road  ! '     'I  would  give  my  eyes,'  replied  Taylor, 


i857  THE    PUNJAB    AND    DELHI.  83 

'  to  be  there.  But  my  work  is  here,  and  I  do  not  think  it  right  to 
volunteer.'  Thornton  adjourned  to  the  Chief  Commissioner,  and 
told  him  what  had  passed.  '  Send  him,'  said  John  Lawrence, 
laconically,  and  Thornton  returned  with  the  pregnant  message. 
Looking  round  to  someone  who  was  near,  Taylor  said,  quite  simply, 
'  Have  you  got  a  sword  ? '  The  sword  was  not  long  forthcoming, 
and  Taylor  was  off  with  it  to  Delhi. 

It  only  remains  to  be  added  that  he  became  the  life  and  soul  of 
every  movement  in  the  trenches  and  the  batteries  there,  '  always 
cheery,  always  active,  never  sparing  himself,  inspiring,  aiding,  ani- 
mating all ;  '  that  he  was  the  idol  of  the  younger  officers  ;  that,  as  I 
have  been  told  by  eye-witnesses,  Nicholson  himself,  the  bravest  of 
the  brave  and  the  rashest  of  the  rash,  used,  in  his  devotion  to  him, 
to  be  nervously,  nay  amusingly  anxious,  lest  he  should  expose  him- 
self to  unnecessary  danger,  and  that  when  the  batteries,  run  up  by 
his  energy  under  the  able  direction  of  Baird  Smith,  had  done  their 
work,  on  the  night  before  the  final  assault,  his  friend  exclaimed, — 
and  it  is  almost  the  last  of  his  recorded  utterances, — '  If  I  survive  to- 
morrow, I  will  let  all  the  world  know  that  it  was  Alec  Taylor  who 
took  Delhi.'  ^ 

On  passing  through  Rawul  Pindi  to  take  command  of  the  Column, 
Nicholson  had  had  much  conversation  with  his  chief  upon  a  matter 
which,  as  I  shall  show  hereafter,  was  the  subject  of  considerable 
difference  of  opinion  between  the  ruler  of  the  Punjab  and  the  most 
restive  of  his  subordinate  officers.  He  left  it  on  the  17th,  and  on 
the  following  day  he  wrote  from  Jhelum  as  follows  : — 

I  forgot  before  starting  to  say  one  or  two  things  I  had  omitted  say- 
ing. One  was  to  thank  you  for  my  appointment.  I  know  you  recom- 
mended it  on  public  grounds,  but  I  do  not  feel  the  less  obliged  to  you. 
Another  was  to  tell  you  that  I  have  dismissed  old  grievances  (whether 
real  or  only  imaginary)  from  my  mind,  and  as  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
byegones  are  byegones.  In  return,  I  would  ask  you  not  to  judge  me 
over  hastily  or  hardly. 

Strange  things  were  doubtless  to  be  expected  in  the  way  of  deeds 
of  daring  as  well  as  of  contempt  of  all  authority  and  rule,  when 
John  Nicholson  found  himself  a  Brigadier  General  at  the  head  of 
a  small  army.  And  expectation  was  not  destined  to  be  disap- 
pointed.    But  of  this  I  will  speak  hereafter. 

Meanwhile  it  was  clear  that  John  Lawrence  was  stripping  his 
province,  little  by  little,  of  his  most  dependable  troops  and  of  the 

'  Kaye's  Sepoy  War,  vol.  iii.  p.  575. 


84  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

officers  whom  he  knew  best,  men  who  would  be  a  tower  of  strength 
to  him,  could  they  be  near  at  hand,  if  an  uprising  should  occur  in 
the  Punjab.  Rothney  and  Coke,  Chamberlain  and  Taylor,  had 
already  gone  to  Delhi,  and  Nicholson,  at  the  head  of  his  Column, 
was  shifting  about  with  all  the  speed  and  erratic  movements  of  a 
meteor,  anywhere  between  Peshawur,  his  former  field  of  duty,  and 
Umballa. 

And  now  the  question  arose,  who  was  to  fill  the  gap  which  Nich- 
olson had  left  at  Peshawur  ?  No  one,  indeed,  could  hope  to  be- 
come what  he  had  been,  alike  '  the  terror  and  the  idol '  of  the  wild 
tribes  of  the  frontier,  and  there  was  only  one  man  in  the  whole 
of  the  Punjab  who  had  had  any  considerable  experience  of  the 
Peshawur  work  and  people.  This  was  Hugh  James,  who,  since 
Temple  had  gone  on  furlough  had  been  '  acting '  as  John  Law- 
rence's Secretary,  had  been  at  his  elbow  ever  since  the  Mutiny 
broke  out,  and  so  had  become  familiar  with  all  his  ways  and  plans. 
He,  of  course,  could  not  be  spared.  But,  in  spite  of  the  advice  of 
Herbert  Edwardes,  who  would  gain  most  by  his  presence,  he  was 
spared.  '  You  are  to  go  back  to  Peshawur,'  said  his  chief,  '  and  I 
will  get  on  with  anybody. ' 

The  *  anybody  '  soon  appeared  in  the  person  of  Arthur  Bran- 
dreth,  a  man  of  much  vigour  and  ability,  who  has  since  filled,  for 
many  years,  the  post  in  which  John  Lawrence  first  rose  to  emi- 
nence, the  Commissionership  of  the  Trans-Sutlej  states,  and  who 
became,  from  that  day  forward,  one  of  his  most  intimate  friends. 
Still  he  was  not  endowed  by  nature  with  some  of  the  gifts  which 
would  seem  to  be  most  essential  for  a  Private  Secretary  at  a  time 
of  such  overwhelming  work  and  anxiety.  *  He  is  an  excellent 
Secretary,'  said  his  chief,  with  a  sardonic  smile,  '  and  I  would 
gladly  have  him  as  a  son-in-law,  but  I  can  neither  hear  a  word 
that  he  speaks,  nor  read  a  line  that  he  writes  !  '  And  Arthur  Bran- 
drethy  in  his  turn,  has  given,  partly  in  a  letter  to  the  'Times,' 
written  soon  after  Lord  Lawrence's  death,  and  partly  in  conversa- 
tions with  myself,  a  vigorous  and  appreciative  description  of  his 
chiefs  work  and  character. 

My  first  introduction  to  Lord  Lawrence  was  in  March,  1853.  I  was 
sent  for  by  him.  I  found  him  in  a  room  with  four  or  five  7nu7ishis  hard 
at  work.  Just  then  a  box  with  official  papers  came  in.  The  key  was 
Hot  ta  be  found.  A  very  slight  search  was  made,  when  John  Lawrence 
said  abruptly,  '  Break  it  open,  break  it  open.'  This  was  done,  a  glance 
taken  at  the  contents,  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  he  turned  to  me  and 
had  a  friendly  talk.     When  I  came  to  Rawul  Pindi  in  June,  1857,  to  take 


i857  THE   PUNJAB    AND    DELHI.  85 

the  post  of  '  acting  '  Secretary  in  place  of  James,  he  said  to  me,  '  Well, 
Brandreth,  you  are  come  to  be  my  Secretary,  are  you  ?  you  must  be 
reticent,  remember,  all  Secretaries  must  be.  But  you  need  not  be  so 
reticent  as  James,  for  he  won't  tell  even  me  ! ' 

And  in  the  letter  to  the  'Times,'  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred, Arthur  Brandreth  speaks  of  his  Chief  in  words  which  I 
think  the  facts  already  recorded  in  this  biography  will  do  more 
than  justify. 

Few  men  of  such  greatness  and  such  strength  have  been  so  singu- 
larly forgetful  of  self,  so  peculiarly  quiet  and  retiring.  I  recollect  well 
when  I  came  home  with  him  after  the  Mutiny  causing  him  real  dis- 
pleasure by  a  threat  (uttered  of  course  in  jest)  that  I  would  let  the 
Mayor  of  Dover  know  he  was  coming,  and  it  is  owing  to  this  dislike  of 
his  to  any  praise  or  even  any  mention  of  himself,  coupled  with  the  non- 
publication  of  his  dispatches  in  the  Indian  papers,  that  we  really  know 
so  little  of  the  grandeur  and  completeness  of  his  arrangements  during 
the  great  Indian  crisis.  As  I  worked  at  the  same  table  with  him  during 
the  greater  part  of  the  Mutiny,  I  had  special  opportunities  of  thoroughly 
observing  his  work,  and  wish  I  could  give  an  idea  of  his  extraordinary 
foresight,  which  seemed  to  see  the  most  distant  results  of  any  course 
taken,  his  earnest  devotion  to  his  work,  the  clearness  and  vigour  of  his 
orders,  his  wonderful  knowledge  of  men,  and  his  care  in  selecting  them 
for  the  various  duties.  As  soon  as  he  heard  the  first  news  of  the  Meerut 
risings,  he  wrote  both  to  Lord  Canning  and  the  Court  giving  such  a 
remarkably  clear  view  of  the  probable  course  of  the  Mutiny,  that  it  must 
ever  remain  a  monument  of  his  foresight  and  sagacity. 

Brandreth  then  goes  on  to  speak,  from  his  personal  knowledge, 
of  a  stroke  of  policy,  which  neither  the  letters  of  Sir  John  Lawrence 
to  his  friends,  nor  my  conversations  with  them,  would  have  brought 
out  so  clearly.  I  have,  therefore,  forborne  to  refer  to  it  till  I 
should  be  able  to  quote  his  own  words  : — 

Sir  John  Lawrence  then  took  a  step  which  has  been  little  understood, 
but  which  really  saved  Upper  India.  He  sent  for  old  Nihal  Sing  Chachi, 
Sir  F.  Curries'  and  his  own  Sikh  aide-de-camp,  and  with  him  made  out 
lists  of  all  the  Sikh  chiefs  who  had  suffered  for  the  rebellion  of  1848,  and 
wrote  at  once  to  each,  before  they  understood  the  news,  urging  them  to 
retrieve  their  character  and  come  down  at  once  with  their  retainers, 
naming  the  number  to  be  brought  by  each.  As  they  came  in,  he  organ- 
ised and  sent  them  off  to  Delhi.  I  well  recollect  the  pains  he  took  per- 
sonally to  inspect  each  retainer  or  recruit,  and  see  how  far  he  was  fit 
for  service,  and  how  glad  he  was  to  secure  any  specimen  of  the  old 
Sikh  cavalry.  He  then  took  great  pains,  after  long  discussions  with 
Macphcrson,  to  select  an  officer  for  ihcm,  who  would  have  an  influence 


86  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

over  them,  and  sent  them  on  to  Delhi.  It  was  fortunate  that  his  fore- 
sight led  him  to  take  such  a  step.  We  soon  found  that  enquiries  were 
being-  made  in  most  of  the  dangerous  parts  of  the  country  for  leaders  to 
take  advantage  of  this  opportunity.  But  none  could  be  found.  They 
were  at  Delhi,  and  several  intercepted  letters  from  there  showed  that 
many  of  the  chiefs  felt  the  mistake  they  had  made,  although  they  wrote 
that,  now  they  were  at  Delhi,  nothing  remained  but  to  fight  for  the 
English. 

Nihal  Sing  Chachi  was  a  remarkable  man  from  every  point  of 
view.  Sir  John  Lawrence  thought  him  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
natives  with  whom  he  had  ever  come  into  contact  ;  and,  as  such, 
he  deserves  more  than  a  mere  passing  mention  here.  He  was 
brave  as  a  lion,  very  intelligent,  and — a  much  rarer  quality  among 
the  natives  of  India,  men  accustomed  for  ages  to  foreign  conquest 
and  foreign  oppression — honest  as  the  day.  He  was,  moreover, 
warmly  attached  to  the  English  rule,  and  he  showed  his  affection, — 
not  as  do  too  many  of  our  friends  among  the  natives,  and  as  they 
are  too  often  encouraged  to  do, — by  echoing  all  that  their  rulers 
say  and  by  a  servile  compliance  with  their  wishes,  but  rather  by 
speaking  his  mind  freely,  whether  his  views  were  likely  to  be  pala- 
table or  not.  Such  a  man  was  sure  to  win  the  confidence  of  Sir 
John  Lawrence,  and  in  a  crisis  like  that  of  the  Mutiny,  his  advice 
on  many  subjects  would  be  worth  more  than  that  of  the  ablest 
English  officers.  For,  being  a  native,  he  would  be  able  to  penetrate 
behind  that  impenetrable  veil  which,  unfortunately,  still  separates 
the  vast  majority  of  our  countrymen  from  those  whom  they  rule.  He 
had  been  one  of  the  '  illustrious  garrison  '  at  Jellalabad,  and  it  had 
been  remarked  of  him  that  he  had  got  to  know  the  character  of  each 
of  its  defenders  as  well  as  they  could  know  it  themselves  !  He  had 
long  been  a  friend  of  Edward  Thornton,  in  whose  Division  he  lived, 
and  John  Lawrence,  who  was  always  ready  to  listen  to  what  any- 
one who  had  special  sources  of  information,  had  to  say,  and  was 
always  able,  by  his  strong  good  sense,  to  separate  the  grain  from 
the  chaff,  was  glad  to  avail  himself  of  his  unique  acquaintance  with 
the  under-currents  of  native  feeling  in  the  Punjab. 

In  the  earlier  days  of  the  Mutiny,  Sir  John  Lawrence,  as  I  have 
shown,  had  been  disposed,  with  that  prudence  which  never  forsook 
him,  to  think  twice  before  he  committed  himself  to  the  dangerous 
and  two-edged  measure  of  arming  the  old  Sikhs  who  had  fought 
against  us  so  few  years  previously.  '  You  had  better  employ  them,' 
said  Nihal  Sing,  '  or  they  may  go  against  you.'  The  advice  was 
not  altogether  reassuring.     It  showed  that  the  weapon  was  two- 


i857  THE   PUNJAB   AND  DELHI.  8/ 

edged  still.  But  John  Lawrence  chose  what  appeared  to  him,  on 
reflection,  to  be  the  lesser  danger,  and  so  committed  the  old  Sikhs 
to  our  side  before  the  greater  came.  '  Why  does  not  the  Chief 
Commissioner  employ  Hodson  ? '  said  the  same  shrewd  observer 
of  human  nature,  on  one  occasion  to  Thornton.  '  He  ought  to  em- 
ploy Hodson.  Hodson  would  do  good  work  at  Delhi.'  '  No  doubt 
he  would,'  said  Thornton.  *  But  he  is  one  of  the  only  three  Eng- 
lishmen in  India  that  I  have  known  who  cannot  be  trusted.'  Nihal 
Sing  was  silent  for  a  moment,  as  though  the  idea  was  new  to  him, 
and  then  said,  '  I  have  known  only  three  natives  who  could  be 
trusted.' 

John  Lawrence  knew  Hodson,  much  better  than  even  Nihal  Sing, 
and  knowing  the  man,  his  weakness  and  his  strength,  and  feeling 
that  if  there  was  much  of  the  born  leader,  there  was  also  much  of 
the  freebooter  in  his  composition,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  not  willing 
to  employ  him  in  the  Punjab  again.  But  when  he  heard  that  Gen- 
eral Anson  had  already  given  him  work  in  which  he  had  few  peers, 
he  allowed  Montgomery  to  raise  some  men  for  him  at  Lahore  and 
to  send  them  down  to  Delhi,  where  they  formed  the  nucleus  of  the 
renowned  '  Hodson's  horse.' 

And  how  were  things  going  on  at  Delhi  meanwhile  ?  Some  peo- 
ple, and  those  not  usually  of  the  most  sanguine  temperament,  had 
believed  that  to  see  Delhi  would  be  to  walk  into  it ;  that  the  muti- 
neers would  take  to  flight  when  we  appeared,  or  if  not,  that  they 
would  offer  only  a  feeble  resistance,  and  that  the  population  would 
at  once  declare  itself  in  our  favour.  It  is  likely  enough  that  such 
would  have  been  the  result  had  General  Hewitt  possessed  ordinary 
sagacity  or  vigour,  and,  following  up  the  flying  troopers  on  the  night 
of  May  lo,  appeared  at  Delhi  before  the  palace  walls  were  stained 
with  innocent  blood,  and  before  the  feeble  descendant  of  the  Mo- 
guls had  been  mobbed  or  muddled  into  the  belief  that  he  might  yet 
restore  the  Mogul  empire.  It  is  possible,  again,  that  such  might 
have  been  the  result  had  the  move  upon  Delhi  taken  place — as  John 
Lawrence  had  endeavoured  to  ensure — a  fortnight  sooner  than  it 
did.  Possible,  but  hardly  probable.  And  as  there  were  many  peo- 
ple in  England  who  complained  because  the  battle  of  the  Alma  had 
not  been  followed  up  by  a  rush  upon  Sebastopol,  even  so  there  were 
many  in  India  who  regarded  the  battle  of  Budli-ki-Serai  as  half  a 
defeat,  because  it  was  not  crowned  by  the  immediate  capture  of 
Delhi.  Indeed,  so  general  was  the  belief  that  Delhi  must  fall  as 
soon  as  our  troops  appeared  before  it,  that,  about  the  middle  of 
June,  it  was  believed,  far  and  wide,  that  it  had    actually  fallen. 


88  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

Even  Lord  and  Lady  Canning  believed  it  for  some  twenty-four 
hours.  But  once  established  upon  the  Ridge,  General  Barnard  saw 
at  a  glance  that  the  operations  of  a  regular  siege  were  out  of  the 
question.  Was,  then,  an  assault  or  a  surprise  possible  ?  The 
younger  and  more  adventurous  spirits  in  the  camp  thought  that  it 
was.  By  permission  of  the  General,  though  hardly  with  his  appro- 
val, the  details  of  such  an  assault  were  arranged  by  four  young 
officers — Hodson,  Wilberforce  Greathed,  Chesney,  and  Maunsell. 
The  powder  bags  for  blowing  in  the  gates  had  already  been  pro- 
vided ;  the  assaulting  columns  were  drawn  up,  ready  and  eager  for 
the  start,  when  a  few  words  spoken  by  Brigadier  Graves  to  General 
Barnard,  words  such  as  the  Gieeks  or  Romans  would  have  put 
down  to  a  direct  interposition  of  heaven,  a  (pr/l-iv,  or  a  vox  opportune 
e7mssa,  caused  the  whole  project  to  be  abandoned  for  the  present. 
A  few  days  later  it  was  mooted  again  at  a  Council-of-War.  The 
political  arguments  advanced  by  Hervey  Greathed  and  the  young 
Engineers  in  favour  of  an  immediate  attempt,  seemed  to  be  as  un- 
answerable as  the  military  arguments  advanced  by  Archdale  Wilson, 
and  Reed,  and  Barnard  were  unanswerable  against  it.  This  being 
■  the  case,  the  more  prudent,  or,  as  some  thought  them,  the  more 
timid,  counsels  carried  the  day.  And,  judging  by  the  event  and 
by  the  deliberate  opinion  of  men  who,  like  Sir  Neville  Chamberlain 
or  Sir  Henry  Norman,  went  through  the  whole  siege,  it  was  well 
that  they  did  so. 

Meanwhile  there  was  fighting  enough  for  the  most  ardent  spirits 
in  the  English  camp.  Hardly  a  day  passed  in  Avhich  our  small 
force  was  not  compelled  to  face  desperate  attacks  delivered  at  one 
point  or  another,  in  the  front  or  in  the  rear  of  our  position,  by 
vastly  superior  bodies  of  the  foe,  whose  religious  and  national  fanati- 
cism had  been  stimulated  to  the  utmost  by  copious  draughts  of 
bhang.  The  deeds  of  personal  and  collective  prowess  displayed 
in  repelling  these  attacks  by  men  like  Reed  with  his  Ghoorkas,  and 
Daly  with  his  Guides  ;  by  Tombs  and  Brind,  Olpherts,  Renny,  and 
Fagan  of  the  Artillery  ;  by  Hope  Grant,  Watson  and  Probyn  of 
the  Cavalry  ;  by  Showers,  Seaton,  and  Coke  of  the  Infantry  ;  by 
Hodson  everywhen  and  everywhere,  afford  a  tempting  field  for 
minute  description  and  glowing  eulogy.  But  they  imply  such  a 
vast  amount  of  detail,  and  they  have  been  described  already  in  so 
many  histories  of  the  Mutiny,  that  I  am  compelled  to  regard  them 
as  beyond  my  limits.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  attacks  of  the  enemy 
were  always  beaten  off  with  heavy  loss. 

But  the  (question  could  not  but  recur  again  and  again,  whether 


i857  THE   PUNJAB    AND    DELHI.  8g 

we  were  gaining  aught  by  these  daily  victories  ;  whether  we  were 
not  losing,  proportionately,  far  more  by  our  few  than  the  enemy  by 
their  many  casualties.  Everything,  in  fact,  was  against  us.  Dis- 
guise it  from  ourselves  as  we  might,  we  were  the  besieged,  not  the 
besiegers.  The  enemy's  guns  were  of  heavier  calibre,  were  much 
more  numerous,  and,  to  our  surprise,  were  better  worked  than  ours. 
'They  are  in  the  ratio  of  four  to  one,'  says  Barnard,  in  one  of  his 
letters.  '  I  saw  no  better  Artillery  practice  in  the  Crimea,'  he  says 
in  another.  The  enemy  had  our  range  exactly,  while  we  failed  to 
find  theirs.  Our  shot  fell,  many  of  them,  harmlessly,  short  of  the 
city  walls,  in  the  wooded  gardens  of  the  suburbs.  Theirs  fell  fast 
and  thick  Avhere  our  men  were  at  the  thickest,  on  every  point  of 
vantage,  round  the  Flag  Staff  Tower,  round  the  old  Observatory, 
round  Hindu  Rao's  house,  where  one  single  round  shot  that  came 
crashing  in  killed  nine  and  wounded  four  of  our  men.  Our  heavy 
ordnance  ammunition  soon  began  to  run  short.  We  were  obliged 
to  economise  it  to  the  utmost,  and  were  fain  to  pick  up  fhe  balls 
that  dropped  around  us,  and  fire  them  back  towards  the  city.  The 
arsenals  of  Delhi  supplied  our  enemies  with  inexhaustible  quantities 
of  shot  and  shell,  which  they  fired  away  almost  at  haphazard,  and 
in  reckless  profusion,  knowing  that  they  could  not  lose,  and  must 
needs  gain  something  in  the  process.  Ague  and  fever  and  cholera 
were  at  work  in  our  ranks,  sapping  the  strength  of  our  men  and 
filling  the  hospitals.  Sunstroke,  too,  called  for  its  quota  of  vic- 
tims, and  our  wily  enemies  took  care  to  select  the  time  when  the 
June  sun  was  at  its  fiercest  for  the  delivery  of  their  most  desperate 
attacks. 

Day  after  day,  news  reached  the  camp  that  fresh  bands  of  mu- 
tineers, stained  with  blood, — the  blood  of  their  officers,  and,  some- 
times also,  of  their  wives  and  children, — were  arriving  to  swell  the 
garrison  of  the  city,  and  were  more  than  filling  the  gaps  which  we 
had  made  in  their  ranks.  One  day,  early  in  the  siege,  it  was  the 
6oth  Native  Infantry,  who  ought  to  have  been  disarmed  by  Anson 
at  Umballa  and  were  now  flocking  into  Delhi  from  Rohtuck,  four 
hundred  strong,  leaving  their  officers  to  take  refuge,  as  an  equiva- 
lent, with  us.  Another  day,  June  i8,  it  was  the  Nusserabad  Bri- 
gade, consisting  of  two  regiments  and  six  guns.  A  third  day,  it 
was  four  whole  regiments  from  Jullundur  and  Phillour,  few  of 
whom,  if  the  General  in  command  had  done  his  duty  when  the 
rising  took  place,  would  have  lived  to  tell  the  tale.  Then  again  it 
was  the  Bareilly  or  Rohilcund  Brigade,  consisting  of  some  four 
thousand  men  of  all  arms,  which  was  believed  to  be  approaching. 


90  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

or  the  still  more  formidable  Gwalior  Contingent,  which,  while  it 
concentrated  its  main  body  for  the  siege  of  Agra,  would,  it  was 
feared,  be  able  also  to  send  a  detachment  down  to  Delhi.  The 
arrival  of  each  fresh  batch  of  mutineers  was  signalised  by  an  attack 
delivered  next  day  with  ever  greater  zest  on  our  ever  dwindling 
numbers  ;  and  if  our  casualties  each  day  were  few,  each  one  of 
them  was  severely  felt.  One  day,  it  was  Quentin  Battye  at  the 
head  of  the  Guides  who  fell,  while  every  officer  but  one  in  the 
corps  was  wounded.  Another  day,  the  lot  fell  on  Colonel  Yule,  of 
the  9th  Lancers,  a  member  of  an  illustrious  brotherhood  ;  while 
Arthur  Becher,  the  Quartermaster-General  of  the  force,  and  Daly, 
the  dashing  head  of  the  Guides,  were  severely  wounded.  A  third 
day,  it  was  Neville  Chamberlain  who  was  laid  low  by  a  wound 
which  was  to  incapacitate  him  from  active  service  during  the  re- 
mainder of  the  siege.  Now  it  was  the  forty-second  anniversary  of 
Waterloo  (June  18),  which  was  to  put  to  the  test  the  mettle  of 
those  whose  fathers  had  been  conquerors  there  ;  and  now,  again, 
it  was  the  centenary  of  Plassy  (June  23),  which,  as  priests  and 
prophets,  omens  and  dreams  had  agreed  in  foretelling,  was  to  wit- 
ness our  final  overthrow.  Why  should  not  the  Empire  which  had 
been  founded  in  a  day  perish  also  in  a  day  ? 

Unfortunately,  such  few  precautions  as  might  have  been  taken 
to  minimise  the  demoralising  influence  of  this  desultory  and  pro- 
tracted warfare  were,  for  some  cause  or  other,  not  adopted  by  the 
military  authorities.  There  was  no  regular  system  of  reliefs,  and, 
consequently,  when  the  alarm  sounded,  which  it  sometimes  did  two 
or  three  times  over  in  a  single  night,  every  man  in  the  force  had  to 
be  on  the  alert.  The  alarm  was  often  a  false  one.  But  this  did 
not  make  it  less  demoralising  or  less  destructive.  There  was  no 
stint,  no  stay.  No  one  in  camp  could  count  on  even  a  few  hours 
of  unbroken  rest.  Barnard,  it  must  be  remembered  in  justice  to 
him,  was  new  to  the  country  and  found  himself  suddenly  thrust 
into  a  position  which  might  have  puzzled  and  perplexed  the  most 
experienced  and  energetic  of  the  Company's  officers.  Assuredly  it 
was  for  no  want  of  will  or  effort  on  his  part  that  everything  which 
might  have  been  done  to  lessen  the  discomforts  and  the  miseries  of 
the  men  was  not  done.  He  was  ever  unsparing  of  himself.  He 
was  to  be  seen  at  all  hours  of  the  night  and  day,  in  all  parts  of  the 
camp,  encouraging,  sympathising,  commending.^  His  great  fault, 
and  it  was,  perhaps,  inevitable  that  it  should  be  brought  into  prom- 

'  See  N'arrative  of  Campaign  of  the  Delhi  Army,  by  Major  H.  Norman,  p.  22. 


i857  THE    PUNJAB    AND    DELHI.  9I 

inence  under  the  unprecedented  circumstances  in  which  he  was 
placed,  was  a  want  of  self-rehance.  He  was  swayed  this  way  and 
that  by  his  advisers.  Now  he  was  for  an  assault,  now  for  a  siege, 
then  for  an  assault  again,  and  then,  as  he  hinted  in  some  of  his  last 
letters  to  John  Lawrence,  for  a  possible  withdrawal.  He  agreed, 
in  fact,  with  the  last  comer.  Perhaps,  too,  he  felt  himself  ham- 
pered, as  he  also  hinted  to  Lawrence,  by  the  presence  in  the  same 
field  of  General  Reed,  the  '  Provincial '  Commander-in-Chief. 

He  had  long  shown  signs  of  breaking  down  under  his  extreme 
anxiety,  and  now  it  was  whispered  that  sleep  was  beginning  to  fail 
him.^  It  was  the  beginning  of  the  end.  The  greatest  military 
commanders,  Hannibal,  Alexander,  Caesar,  Wellington,  Napoleon, 
have  all  been  famous  for  their  power  of  sleeping  whenever  they 
wished  to  do  so.  Without  that  power,  humiliating  as  it  may  seem 
to  confess  it,  they  could  not  have  been  such  great  commanders.  I 
have  already  remarked  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  himself  was  prob- 
ably saved  from  breaking  down  altogether  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Mutiny  by  the  way  in  which  he  could  drop  asleep  directly  his  work 
was  over,  could  be  aroused  to  send  forth  an  all-important  telegram 
and  then  drop  off  again  in  sweet  forgetfulness.  But  '  nature's  kind 
nurse '  came  not  now  to  Barnard.  He  had  hoped,  indeed,  for 
great  relief  from  the  presence  of  Neville  Chamberlain,  and  then 
again  from  that  of  Baird  Smith,  the  new  Chief  Engineer,  a  man  of 
the  highest  ability  and  energy,  who  reached  the  camp  on  July  3, 
anxious  at  once  to  begin  regular  siege  operations.  But  Baird 
Smith  found  that  nothin'g  was  ready.  There  was  a  scarcity  of  tools, 
and  a  scarcity  of  workmen.  There  were  no  sand-bags  and  few 
heavy  guns.  Worse  than  all,  there  was  not  shot  and  shell  enough 
for  a  single  day's  bombardment.  So  he  was  obliged  to  fall  back 
on  what  Chamberlain  and  Reed,  Barnard,  and  he  himself  all  called 
'a  gamester's  throw,'  or  'the  hazard  of  a  die,'  the  project  of  an 
assault.  But  the  '  throw  '  was  not  to  be  thrown,  nor  the  first  sod  of 
the  regular  siege  works  to  be  upturned  by  order  of  the  General  in 
command.  The  hand  of  death  was  already  upon  Barnard,  and 
thus  two  Commanders  of  the  Delhi  field  force  passed  from  the 
scene  before  a  single  step  had  been  taken  towards  the  capture  of  the 
place. 

Such  was  the  general  course  of  events  at  Delhi  during  the  month 
of  June,  and  such  the  general  outlook  of  the  siege.  Why  was  it 
not  given  up  as  hopeless,  and  how  was  it  that  the  constant  drain 

1  Kaye,  vol.  ii.  p.  558. 


92  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

upon  our  numbers  and  our  resources  did  not  cause  even  the  bolder 
spirits  in  our  camp  to  advocate  a  withdrawal  from  so  bootless  an 
enterprise  ? 

There  was  one  reason  and  only  one.  Sir  John  Lawrence  had 
been  the  prime  instigator  of  the  advance  on  Delhi  ;  and  everybody 
in  the  camp  knew  well  that  he  was  not  the  man  to  let  the  enterprise 
fall  through  for  want  of  any  help  that  he  could  give.  Force  of 
circumstances  and  force  of  character  combined  had  placed  him  in 
a  position  as  regards  the  whole  North-West  of  India  which  was 
absolutely  unique.  What  mattered  it  that  Lord  Canning  and  that 
Mr.  Colvin  were  cut  off  from  all  communication  with  Delhi  by  a 
broad  belt  of  mutiny  ?  What  mattered  it  to  the  army  that  one 
Commander-in-Chief  after  another  was  carried  off  by  death,  or  went 
away,  apparently  death  stricken,  to  the  hills,  if  John  Lawrence,  who 
was  more  to  them  than  the  Commander-in-Chief,  more  even  than 
the  Governor-General,  still  remained  ?  There  he  was  at  Rawul 
Pindi  hearing  everything,  weighing  everything,  deciding  everything, 
directing  everything ;  it  might  almost  be  said, — so  admirable  were 
his  means  of  information,  his  Intelligence  Department  throughout 
his  province, — seeing  everything.  His  was  a  mind  which  was  able 
to  look  before  as  well  as  after,  after  as  well  as  before.  He  it  was 
who  held  in  his  hands  the  tangled  threads  of  every  military  move- 
ment and  every  political  combination,  from  Delhi  to  Peshawur,  and 
from  Peshawur  again  to  Mooltan,  or, — thanks  to  the  warm  co-opera- 
tion of  Bartle  Frere, — even  to  Kurrachi.  His  was  the  name  that 
was  on  everybody's  lips  ;  his  the  figure  that  filled  the  background, 
at  least,  of  everybody's  thoughts.  In  the  camp  before  Delhi,  such 
was  his  permeating  influence  that  many  of  the  native  troops  would 
not  be  persuaded  that  he  was  not  there  in  person.  Within  the  city 
itself  such  was  the  terror  of  his  name,  and  so  firm  was  the  belief  that 
it  was  he  and  no  one  else  who  made  their  success  impossible,  that 
when  the  spirits  of  the  mutineers  were  flagging,  no  more  potent 
method  of  rousing  them  to  enthusiasm  could  be  found  than  to  pa- 
rade through  the  streets  of  Delhi  a  more  than  usually  stalwart  and 
fair-skinned  Kashmeri  whom  they  had  captured  in  one  of  their 
raids,  and  declare  to  the  credulous  masses  that  their  prisoner  was 
the  redoubtable  Jan  Larrens  himself  !  ^  The  leaders  of  the  Mutiny 
showed,  by  so  doing,  their  keen  insight  into  the  conditions  of  the 
struggle.  Had  anything  happened  to  John  Lawrence,  who,  we  may 
well  ask,  would  have  been  able  to  take  the  reins  which  fell  from  his 

^  Cave  Browne's  Punjab  and  Delhi,  vol.  ii.  p.  140. 


i857  THE   PUNJAB   AND    DELHI.  93 

hands  ?  Who  would  have  been  statesman  as  well  as  soldier  enough  for 
the  crisis,  and  how  and  when  is  it  likely  that  Delhi  would  have  fallen  ? 

I  have  said  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  knew  everything  that  went 
on  at  Delhi  as  well,  perhaps  better,  than  if  he  had  been  on  the  ridge 
himself.  He  was  able,  as  I  have  pointed  out  in  the  case  of  his  own 
province,  to  take  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  whole.  If  he  was  not 
able  to  use  the  apparently  decisive,  but  often  curiously  misleading 
formula,  '  I  was  there  and  therefore  I  know  it  was  so,'  he  could  say, 
'  I  was  not  there,  but  by  comparing  all  the  reports  I  have  received 
at  this  distance  of  time  and  place,  I  can,  perhaps,  form  a  truer 
judgment  of  the  bearing  of  the  whole  operation  on  the  prospects  of 
the  siege,  than  many  of  those  who  were. '  He  knew,  in  fact,  the 
strength  and  the  weakness  of  each  of  his  correspondents,  and 
weighing  them  one  against  the  other,  was  able  to  assign  to  each 
statement  its  proper  value.  On  every  projected  movement,  if  there 
was  time  for  it,  he  was  consulted  beforehand,  not  so  much  because 
he  himself,  as  because  those  who  were  before  Delhi  wished  that  it 
should  be  so.  The  particulars  of  each  day's  engagement  were 
telegraphed  to  him  first,  and  afterwards  detailed  in  writing,  by  a 
cloud  of  witnesses.  Each  General  in  succession,  Anson,  Barnard, 
Reed,  Archdale  Wilson,  corresponded  with  him  precisely  as  if  he 
were,  what  he  never  was,  their  official  superior,  often  deferred  to 
his  judgment,  or  humbly  excused  themselves,  if  they  were  obliged 
to  differ  from  it.  It  is  to  be  noted  also  that  his  communications 
with  Delhi  increased  in  number  and  in  interest  as  the  siege  dragged 
its  slow  length  along.  It  was  not  only  the  Commander-in-Chief 
who  sent  him  an  almost  daily  journal  with  comments  or  anticipations 
on  the  past,  the  present,  and  the  future  operations  of  the  siege  ; 
but  Greathed  and  Daly,  Norman,  Chamberlain,  and  Nicholson 
poured  out  their  troubles  or  their  hopes  to  him,  often  *  in  thoughts 
that  breathe  and  words  that  burn,'  in  letters  which  lie  before  me 
and  which,  if  they  were  reproduced  in  exienso,  would  give,  I  think, 
a  picture  of  the  siege  as  a  whole  such  as  has  hardly  yet  been  given 
to  the  world. 

But,  interesting  as  these  letters  are,  it  is  my  business,  in  my  limited 
space,  to  illustrate  what  I  have  said  about  Sir  John  Lawrence  by 
quotations  from  the  letters  which  were  written  by,  rather  than  from 
those  which  were  written  to  him  ;  to  show  how,  ruling  as  he  did  a 
province  which  was  full  of  inflammatory  elements,  he  managed, 
with  prudent  audacity,  to  turn  what  might  have  been  the  sources 
of  danger  into  fresh  evidence  of  his  strength  ;  how,  by  a  self- 
emptying  process  not  often  found  in  rulers,  he  drained  it  of  every- 


94  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

thing  which  it  could  supply,  and  so  met  each  successive  want  of 
the  besiegers  of  Delhi ;  how,  with  his  eyes  always  fixed  on  that 
distant  goal,  he  yet  used  no  unworthy  means  towards  it,  and  never 
overlooked  anything  that  lay  beneath  his  feet.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered throughout  that  I  am  often  obliged  to  dismiss  in  a  couple  of 
lines  plans  and  operations  which  required,  first,  much  anxious 
thought  and  enquiry  in  his  responsible  solitude  at  Rawul  Pindi,  and 
then  scores  of  letters  and  explanations  and  cautions  to  his  subordi- 
nates, before  any  one  of  them  could  be  safely  carried  into  practice. 
There  was,  for  example,  a  want  of  gunners  at  Delhi.  Sir  John 
Lawrence,  having  first  convinced  himself  that  it  was  safe  to  do  so, 
called  boldly  on  the  old  Sikh  artillerymen  who  had  dealt  death  into 
our  ranks  in  the  two  Sikh  wars,  to  leave  their  ploughs  and  go  and 
deal  death  in  our  defence,  on  the  rebellious  city.  Sappers  and 
miners  and  pioneers  were  wanted.  On  the  suggestion  of  Edwardes, 
who  was  always  fertile  in  expedients, — some  of  them  rash  enough, 
— Sir  John,  with  a  full  sense  of  his  responsibility,  and  after  a  labo- 
rious investigation,  picked  out  a  large  body  of  Muzbi  Sikhs  of  the 
despised  *  Sweeper  '  caste,  who  had  been  employed  on  the  Bari 
Doab  canal,  and  were  now  waiting  with  *  idle  hands  '  for  that '  some- 
thing to  do  '  which  was  not  unlikely  to  mean  '  mischief,'  and  sent 
them  down  to  Delhi.  They  did  excellent  service  there,  overcame 
the  prejudice  against  their  employment,  and  were  afterwards  en- 
rolled in  the  27th  Bengal  Pioneers  ;  while  anotiier  regiment  of 
Muzbis,  formed  after  the  same  model,  have  served  with  credit  both 
in  China  and  in  Abyssinia.  When  dependable  native  troops  were 
wanted  at  Meerut,  to  set  the  Europeans  free  for  service  before 
Delhi,  it  was  not  some  of  his  veterans — for  he  had  no  more  to  spare 
— but  some  of  his  newly  raised  Punjabis  whom  Sir  John  sent 
thither  to  fill  the  gap.  When  there  was  a  rising  among  the  Hur- 
riana  light  infantry,  and  the  flames  of  mutiny  and  murder  had 
already  overspread  the  whole  of  Sirsa,  Hansi  and  Hissar,  instead 
of  treating  these  districts, — as  many  lesser  men  might  have  been 
disposed  to  do, — as  mere  outliers  to  the  Punjab,  he  ordered  Van 
Cortlandt,  a  man  marked  out  by  all  his  previous  history  for  the  pur- 
pose, to  cross  the  Sutlej  with  500  Sikhs  whom  he  had  just  raised, 
to  reconquer  the  country,  and  then  to  occupy  the  districts  in  the 
Delhi  neighbourhood  which  lay  to  the  rear  of  our  besieging  army. 
These  important  duties,  helped  by  the  levies  of  Raja  Jowahir  Sing 
and  others  which  were  sent  down  from  time  to  time,  Van  Cort- 
landt performed  with  marked  success.  Even  the  Nawab  of  Bawa- 
hulpore,  who,  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  knew,  was  little  to  be  trusted, 


i857  THE  PUNJAB   AND    DELHI.  95 

was  forced  by  his  strong  will  to  contribute  a  small  contingent  to 
the  expedition  and  so,  in  a  measure,  to  commit  himself  to  our  side. 

How  Sir  John  Lawrence  stripped  himself  of  his  best  officers  and 
his  most  dependable  troops,  I  have  already  shown,  and  must  con- 
tinue to  show,  till  the  Mutiny  is  at  an  end.  But  men,  without 
arms,  and  money,  and  baggage  animals,  would  have  been  of  little 
use,  and  each  and  all  of  these  came  also  from  the  Punjab.  It  was 
from  the  Punjab  arsenals  of  Phillour  and  Ferozepore  that  two  Siege 
Trains  were  fitted  out,  the  first  in  May  to  enable  the  siege  of  Delhi 
to  begin,  the  second  in  August  to  bring  it  to  an  end.  It  was  from 
the  Punjab  and  Scinde  that  the  troops  came  which  escorted  the 
two  Trains  in  safety.  It  was  from  the  Punjab  that  vast  quantities 
of  elephants,  camels,  bullocks  and  country  carts  were  gathered  to- 
gether, under  the  direction  of  Barnes  and  Briggs,  and  with  admir- 
able skill,  were  organized  into  a  Transport  Train,  of  which  thirty 
waggons  were  to  start  each  day  for  Delhi,  from  each  of  the  three 
great  stations  of  Umballa,  Loodiana,  and  Kurnal.  It  was  from  the 
Punjab  treasuries  which  were  scattered  over  the  country  and  had 
been  saved  from  plunder  by  the  instant  precautions  of  Lawrence 
and  Montgomery  that  the  sinews  of  war, — the  money  for  paying  the 
troops  and  for  doing  everything  that  was  done  at  Delhi, — were 
unstintingly  supplied.  If  sandbags  were  wanted  for  the  Engi- 
neers, or  saddles  for  the  Horse  Artillery  or  tents  for  the  Euro- 
pean troops,  it  was  from  the  Punjab  that  they  all  came.  The 
manufacturing  classes  of  Loodiana,  disaffected  as  they  were,  sent  off 
under  the  energetic  pressure  applied  to  them  by  George  Ricketts, 
three  hundred  thousand  yards  of  tent  cloth  manufactured  by  them- 
selves .' 

Thus  in  everyway,  under  John  Lawrence's  administration,  the 
Punjab  was  paying  back  to  India  all  and  much  more  than  all  that 
it  owed  ;  and  a  few  letters  selected  from  the  hundreds  in  my  pos- 
session, written  by  him  during  the  months  of  June  and  July,  will 
take  up  the  personal  aspect  of  the  story  where  I  last  dropped  it,  and 
illustrate  the  part  borne  by  himself  in  everything  that  was  going  on. 

To  General  Reed,  who,  as  '  Provincial '  Commander-in-Chief,  was 
on  his  way  down  from  Rawul  Pindi  to  Delhi,  he  was  fertile  in  sugges- 
tions prompted  by  his   minute  knowledge  of  the  city  and  district. 

Rawul  Pindi  :  June  i,  1857. 

My  dear  General, — All  well  since  you  left  this.     I'eshawur  quite  quiet 

as  yet.     In  the  meantime,  we  are  j^etting-  reliable  native  troops  up  there. 

I  hope  you  have  not  suffered  by  the  trip.     It  must  be  very  trying  in  such 

weather.    ...    I  recommend  that,  on  your  approach  to  Delhi,  you  issue 


96  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

proclamations,  calling  on  respectable  men  to  leave  the  mutineers  and 
rally  round  us.  I  would  also  promise  their  lives  to  such  men  as  have 
not  committed  murder,  who  surrender.  Thus  the  Sepoys  of  the  74th 
Native  Infantry  are  said  to  have  behaved  well  to  the  last,  and  to  have 
saved  their  officers.  If  this  be  true,  their  lives  might  well  be  spared. 
In  fact,  short  of  restoring  them  to  the  service,  everything  else  might  be 
promised  them.  By  a  judicious  exercise  of  clemency  and  severity,  you 
will  produce  a  considerable  effect.  The  very  issue  of  your  proclamations 
will  sow  dissensions  among  the  insurgents,  and  they  will  begin  to  dis- 
trust each  other.  I  do  not  think  that  Delhi  will  hold  out.  But  if  it  does, 
and  you  take  it  by  storm,  I  suggest  that  you  have  a  strong  Reserve  at 
hand  in  good  order,  or  your  men  may  be  cut  up  when  in  disorder  plun- 
dering in  the  town.  The  citizens  will  not  fight  if  they  can  possibly  help 
it.  I  doubt  their  fighting  at  all.  If  the  town  is  surrendered,  take  pos- 
session of  the  fort  (the  palace).  It  commands  everything,  and  500  or 
1000  men  in  it,  are  safe  from  an  insurrection  of  100,000.  The  victory  on 
the  Hindun  will  do  great  things  for  us. 

To  Edwardes,  a  few  days  later,  he  gives  a  minute  account  of  the 
fortifications  as  he  had  known  them,  which  is  not  without  interest. 

As  regards  Delhi,  it  will,  no  doubt,  be  ruinous  if  any  delay  take  place 
before  the  walls.  On  the  other  hand,  it  will  be  necessary  to  make  the 
attack  with  prudent  audacity.  We  were  thirty  years  fortifying  the  place, 
or  rather  improving  the  Mohammedan  fortifications,  and  spent  many 
lacs  of  rupees.  The  walls  are  high,  of  cut  stone,  set  in  mortar,  some 
seven  or  eight  feet  thick,  and  we  built  many  bastions  to  flank  the  walls. 
But  the  main  defence  is  the  ditch,  which  is  deep,  very  wide,  and  in  good 
order.  My  own  idea  is  that  if  no  unguarded  spot  for  a  surprise  is  found, 
the  plan  would  be  to  advance  under  the  protection  of  the  mosque  outside 
the  Ajmere  gate,  and  effect  a  lodgment.  Then,  batter  down  the  crene- 
lated top  of  the  wall  or  parapet,  which  is  not  more  than  three  feet  thick, 
and  thus  prevent  the  enemy  from  defending  the  approach  to  the  gate- 
way, &c.  But  I  sent  off  a  scheme  to  Sir  Henry  Barnard  last  night,  copy 
of  which  I  enclose.  I  think  that  if  the  passage  be  not  guarded, — and 
nothing  is  more  likely  than  that  it  is  not, — two  hundred  picked  infantry 
would  get  in  and  carry  the  Cashmere  gate,  before  the  Poorbeas  were 
wide  awake.  The  Guides  would  be  just  the  boys  for  such  an  enterprise, 
and  would  steal  up  unnoticed.  The  wall  on  this  side  is  so  placed,  that 
unless  you  jump  up  on  the  parapet  and  peep  over,  you  can  see  nothing 
which  is  going  on  down  below.  Brigadier  Cotton  may  depend  on  my 
supporting  him  in  everyway  possible.  In  regard  to  the  particular  matters 
you  mention,  I  am  ready  to  go  '  the  whole  animal '  to  his  heart's  content. 

One  of  the  greatest  dangers  against  which  Sir  John  Lawrence 
had  to  guard  throughout  the  crisis  in  the  Punjab  was  the  overflow- 
ing zeal  of  his  lieutenants.     It  was  a  fault  on  virtue's  side  ;  one 


I8S7  THE   PUNJAB   AND   DELHI.  97 

with  which  he  had  every  sympathy,  which  he  had  himself  done  his 
best  to  stimulate,  and  of  which,  in  quiet  times,  he  could  hardly 
have  had  too  much.  But,  in  times  like  these,  he  felt  that  unless 
held  in  check  by  a  strong  hand,  and  by  full  knowledge  of  all  that 
was  going  on,  it  might  prove  hardly  less  dangerous  than  its  oppo- 
site. From  first  to  last,  it  was  his  policy  to  enlist  no  more  men 
than  might  be  absolutely  necessary  to  preserve  the  peace  and  sup- 
ply the  drain  for  Hindustan.  He  felt,  as  he  expressed  it,  the  expe- 
diency of,  as  far  as  possible,  preventing  the  Punjabis  from  seeing 
that  the  physical  force  of  the  country  was  on  their  side,  or  from 
feeling  that  they  were  the  right  arm  of  the  British  power.  But 
when  leave  had  once  been  given  to  raise  levies,  every  officer  was 
naturally  anxious  to  find  vent  for  his  energies  and  to  show  his  zeal 
by  raising  as  many  as  possible,  and  that  sometimes,  without  consult- 
ing his  chief.  Each  District  officer  knew  of  course  what  little  he 
could,  under  the  best  of  circumstances,  do  himself,  but  he  could 
not  possibly  realise  the  sum  total  of  danger  to  the  province  as  a 
whole,  which  so  many  littles  would  make  up.  The  Chief  Commis- 
sioner knew  it  well.  He  had  his  eye  on  every  part,  and  was  com- 
pelled sometimes  to  put  the  drag  on.  Here  are  one  or  two  letters, 
samples  of  many  others,  which  bear  upon  the  subject,  and  illustrate 
his  unique  knowledge  of  all  the  races  of  the  Punjab. 

Ravul  Pindi  :  June  lo,  1857. 
My  clear  Brigadier  (Sydney  Cotton), — I  think  it  is  worthy  of  consid- 
eration what  number  of  Pathans  you  enlist  in  a  regiment.  One  officer 
is  mad  after  Pathans,  another  after  Sikhs,  another  after  Poorbeas,  and 
so  on.  In  spite  of  some  care,  some  of  our  Punjab  corps  were,  not  long 
ago,  nearly  all  Poorbea  !  They  were  such  in  spirit.  But  this  has  been 
checked  and  remedied.  Sensible  officers  will  tell  you  that  Pathans  are 
first-rate  fellows  on  a  hillside.  But  they  are  fickle,  faithless  and  fanatical. 
The  man  who  will  give  you  his  head  to-day  will  cut  your  throat  to-mor- 
row^  The  Sikh,  though  not  a  braver  man  than  the  Pathan,  has  perhaps 
more  sustained  courage.  He  will  not  do  such  desperate  deeds,  perhaps, 
but  he  is  sure  and  certain.  They  have  a  strong  military  feeling  and  do 
not  mind  discipline,  which  the  Pathan  hates.  Further,  the  Pathan  only 
serves  to  collect  a  little  money  and  tlien  cuts  the  service.  The  Sikh  sticks 
to  it.  I  think,  therefore,  tliat  we  should  be  careful  not  to  have  too  many 
Pathans.  My  proposition  for  a  regiment  of  ten  companies  is,  four  of 
Sikhs,  two  of  Hill  Rajputs,  two  of  Punjabi  Mohammedans,  two  of  Pa- 
thans. In  Peshawur,  if  you  like,  you  might  have  a  third  of  Pathans. 
The  Punjabi  Mohammedan  is  a  brave  soldier,  with  perhaps  less  dash 
than  the  Pathan,  but  more  steady  and  less  fanatical  and  ferocious.  I 
myself  look  on  the  latter  as  a  very  dangerous  character. 
VOL.  11. — 7 


98  •     LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

To  Montgomery  he  writes  in  a  similar  strain  : — 

June  21,  1S57. 

My  clear  Montgomery, — We  must  not  go  too  fast  ;  we  must  not  raise 
too  many  men  in  the  Punjab,  be  they  Mohammedan  or  be  they  Sikji. 
Too  many  Punjabis  may  breed  grief.  I  have  now  arranged  for  40,000 
Punjal)  troops  ;  that  is  20,000  old  corps,  and  20,000  new.  This  is  ample. 
More  will  be  dangerous.  These,  moreover,  do  not  include  levies  and 
new  mounted  police,  who  must  aggregate  five  or  six  thousand  more. 
Recollect  we  have  but  seven  and  a  half  corps  of  European  Infantry  to 
keep  all  these  in  order.  People  go  too  fast.  I  see  Barnes  is  raising 
levies  and  now  wants  to  put  European  officers  to  them.  I  know  nothing 
about  this.  Please  God,  by  October  next,  if  the  Punjabis  remain  staunch, 
we  shall  be  able  to  send  20,000  disciplined  troops  to  Hindustan  to  aid  our 
Europeans  in  reconquering  it.  But,  in  the  meantime,  these  very  Pun- 
jabis will  be  a  source  of  danger,  if  too  numerous.  Please  show  this  to 
Macpherson,  your  Adjutant-General. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  note  here  the  extent  to  Avhich,  in  spite 
of  all  impediments,  he  was  able  to  carry  out  the  prudent  principles 
he  had  laid  down.  Of  the  aggregate  of  fifty-eight  thousand  men 
of  which  the  Punjab  army  (including  the  Military  Police)  was  found 
to  consist  towards  the  close  of  the  Mutiny,  not  less  than  thirty-four 
thousand  had  been  called  into  existence  by  John  Lawrence  during 
it  !  It  is  obvious  at  a  glance  what  a  formidable  danger  this  new 
and  vast  army  might  have  proved,  had  it  been  drawn  chiefly  from 
the  Sikhs,  or  from  only  one  or  two  of  the  more  prominent  races  in 
the  country.  But  such  was  not  the  case.  It  was  composed,  owing 
to  the  Chief  Commissioner's  ever  watchful  care,  of  men  drawn  from 
the  greatest  possible  variety  of  races,  and  differing  from  each  other 
in  religion,  birthplace,  habits  and  dialect.  There  were  two  thou- 
sand hillmen,  eight  thousand  mixed  Hindus  or  Hindustanis,  thir- 
teen thousand  Sikhs  and  twenty-four  thousand  Mohammedans. 
These  last,  it  will  be  observed,  formed  about  a  half  of  the  whole, 
but  they  were  drawn  from  many  different  tribes  who  had  nothing  in 
common  except  their  religion,  and  were,  many  of  them,  as  alien  to 
the  Sikhs  as  were  the  Hindustanis  themselves.  Seldom  has  the 
somewhat  sinister  maxim,  divide  et  ifnpera,  been  acted  upon  by  a 
ruler  with  less  selfish  motives  or  with  more  beneficent  or  more 
triumphant  results. 

To  Daly  of  the  Guides  John  Lawrence  writes  with  characteristic 
heartiness  : — 

Rawul  Pindi  :  June  15,  1857. 
My  dear  Daly, — I  was  glad  to  get  your  letter  of  the  loth,  and  rejoiced 
to  liear  how  admirably  the  Guides   had  betiaved.     Poor  Battye  !  we  all 


i857  THE   PUNJAB    AND    DELHI.  99 

grieve  for  him  greatly.  We  are  sending  you  every  man  we  can  muster, 
Rothney's  Sikhs,  Coke's  regiment,  and  some  Punjab  Cavalry,  also  a  regi- 
ment and  a  half  of  Europeans  and  some  two  hundred  Artillerymen.  We 
are  getting  Hughes'  Cavalry  also  up,  and  will  push  it  on  too,  I  hope.  I 
have  seen  from  the  first  that  native  troops  will  be  greatly  wanted  at 
Delhi,  and  but  forGeneral  Johnstone's  folly,  Rothney's  Sikhs  and  Nichol- 
son's Cavalry  would  have  been  with  you  by  this  time.  I  have  offered  to 
send  either  Chamberlain  or  Nicholson  to  Headquarters,  whichever  Gen- 
eral Reed  likes  ;  the  one  who  remains  to  command  the  Movable  Column. 
Both  are  first-rate  soldiers,  good  in  council  and  strong  in  fight.  I  wish 
we  had  a  few  others  like  them.  I  expect  Nicholson  here  on  his  way 
down  to-morrow,  as  I  want  to  get  him  e7i  route  by  the  time  the  Chiefs 
reply  is  received.  Pray  tell  the  Guides  how  delighted  I  am  with  their 
good  conduct.  If  I  can  do  anything  for  you  in  any  way,  pray  com- 
mand me. 

From  Sir  John  Lawrence's  letters  to  Lord  Canning,  all  of  which 
are  masterly,  I  select  here  three  or  four. 

Rawul  Pindi :  June  14,  1S57. 

My  Lord,— We  are  all  well  in  this  quarter,  and  exerting  ourselves  to 
reinforce  the  army  at  Delhi,  without  compromising  ourselves  in  the 
Punjab.  Our  great  anxiety  was  Peshawur,  which  now,  owing  to  the 
energetic  measures  adopted,  seems  pretty  secure.  It  was  a  great  mis- 
fortune that  half  the  men  of  the  Punjab  corps  were  at  their  homes  on 
furlough.     They  are  all  flocking  back  and  display  an  excellent  spirit. 

No  doubt,  what  we  most  urgently  require,  is  plenty  of  European 
soldiers.  But  just  now  at  Delhi,  every  faithful  native  soldier  is  almost 
as  valuable  as  his  European  comrade.  Without  native  troops  in  a 
season  like  this,  a  body  of  Europeans  must  become  disorganised.  The 
mismanagement  at  Meerut  and  the  delay  at  Headquarters,  have  changed 
what  was  a  mere  e'meuie  into  a  struggle  for  supremacy.  At  this  mo- 
ment I  do  not  think  that  a  corps  of  Native  Infantry  in  the  Bengal  Presi- 
dency is  staunch,  and  most  of  the  Regular  Cavalry,  and  many  of  the 
Irregular  Cavalry  from  Hindustan  are  in  the  same  state.  The  Moham- 
medans of  the  Regular  Cavalry,  where  they  have  broken  out,  have  dis- 
played a  more  active,  vindictive,  and  fanatical  spirit  than  the  Hindus. 
But  these  traits  are  characteristic  of  the  race. 

Some  years  ago  when  General  Hewitt  was  appointed  to  the  Peshawur 
Division,  I  pointed  out  that  he  was  utterly  unfit  for  such  a  charge.  We 
were  mercifully  preserved  during  his  incumbency  for  about  three  years, 
when  he  was  transferred  to  Meerut  ;  and  your  Lordship  will  have  seen 
the  mess  he  has  made  of  his  charge.  I  hear  that  the  ammunition  of 
the  Meerut  Artillery  was  in  the  Delhi  magazines  ;  their  cattle  grazing 
beyond  Delhi.  But  even  if  the  General  had  scoured  the  country  for  five 
miles  round  his  cantonment,  he  would  have  kept  it  quiet,  and  obtained 
carriage.     The  European  Infantry,  when  they  came  down  from  the  hills, 


100  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

had  but  ten  rounds  of  ammunition,  while  the  native  troops  had  forty  ! 
It  is  almost  a  miracle  that  the  Siege  Train  got  safe  down  from  PhjU 
lour.  Its  main  escort  was  the  Nabha  Chiefs  contingent.  Our  great 
calamity,  hitherto,  has  been  the  disaffection  of  the  JuUundur  native 
troops.     .     .     . 

General  Reed  is  already  calling  for  reinforcements.  We  are  sending 
ofiF  H.  M.'s  8th  from  Jullundur,  a  wing  of  the  6ist  from  Ferozepore, 
Coke's  regiment  of  Ritles,  the  4th  Sikhs  and  some  Punjab  Cavalry,  be- 
sides some  European  Artillery.  A  detachment  of  the  Bombay  Fusiliers 
is  expected  at  Mooltan  about  the  28th,  and  I  hope  that  the  rest  of  the 
corps  will  not  be  long  behind.  As  we  get  rid  of  our  Regular  native 
regiments,  we  are  able  to  employ  our  European  and  Punjab  corps  from 
all  parts  but  Peshawur.  The  first  Punjab  Cavalry  is  now  on  its  way 
from  Mooltan  to  Ferozepore.  We  have  despatched  a  large  body  of 
levies  and  some  contingents  to  endeavour  to  recover  Sirsa,  and  push 
their  way  towards  Hansi  and  Delhi. 

I  do  not  think  that  there  is  any  man  of  much  ability  at  Headquarters. 
The  best  officer  on  the  staff  is  Captain  Norman,  who  saw  a  good  deal  of 
service  at  Peshawur.  But  he  is  young,  and  not  a  pushing  character. 
General  Reed  himself  is  feeble  and  much  worn,  and  seems  very  unfit  for 
hard  service.  I  have  offered  him  either  Brigadier  Chamberlain,  or 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Nicholson,  both  first-rate  officers.  He  wants  to  take 
Chamberlain,  but,  in  that  case,  Nicholson  should  be  made  a  Brigadier- 
General,  and  be  placed  in  command  of  the  Movable  Column.  To  give 
it  to  an  ordinary  man  is  to  make  no  use  of  it.  If  ever  we  are  to  break 
through  the  old  system,  and  place  competent  men  in  difficult  positions, 
it  is  now,  when  our  very  rule  in  India  is  endangered.  But  I  do  hope 
that  your  Lordship  will  have  this  done. 

Maharaja  Golab  Sing  is  profuse  in  his  offers  of  service,  and  I  have 
told  him  that,  possibly,  I  may  borrow  some  money  of  him.  Many  in 
chis  quarter  anticipate  that  he  will  take  part  against  us,  but  I  can  see  no 
immediate  prospect  of  his  doing  so.  At  his  age,  and  with  his  health,  he 
cannot  desire  to  enter  into  new  struggles,  and,  moreover,  he  has  much 
to  apprehend  from  the  bad  example  to  his  own  army  of  an  insurgent 
soldiery.  His  son  is  said  to  dislike  us,  and  to  have  some  ambition.  But 
I  think  I  could  raise  such  a  disturbance  in  his  own  country  as  would 
keep  him  quiet.     At  any  rate  I  anticipate  no  danger  from  that  quarter. 

The  Sikh  chiefs  of  the  Cis-Sutlej  states  have  behaved  admirably.  In 
fact,  I  cannot  praise  the  Maharaja  of  Puttiala  and  the  Raja  of  Jheend's 
exertions  too  much.  But  for  their  aid  we  should  never  have  got  the 
army  and  Siege  Train  to  Delhi.  I  am.  not  fond  of  native  chiefs.  I  have 
seen  great  evil  done  by  them.  But  I  am  bound  to  say  that  these  two  de- 
serve almost  any  reward  your  Lordship  could  bestow.  I  think  a  letter 
to  them  at  once  would  do  good.  W^e  cannot  tell  what  we  may  require 
of  them. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  wrote  regularly  to  Lord  Canning,  but,  owing 


i857  THE    PUNJAB    AND    DELHI.  lOI 

to  the  press  of  work  and  the  disturbed  state  of  the  country,  few- 
letters  were  written  by  Lord  Canning  to  him,  and  fewer  still  reached 
him.  All  communications  between  the  Punjab  and  the  Capital,  it 
will  be  remembered,  had  to  go  round  by  Kurrachi  and  Bombay. 

Rawul  Pindi  :  June  2g,  1857. 

My  Lord, — I  have  not  heard  from  your  Lordship  since  the  26th  of 
last  month.  We  get  no  news  whatever  from  below  Allahabad  and 
Cawnpore,  and  very  seldom  so  far  down.  I  gather  that  Lucknow 
still  holds  out,  and  that  all  the  European  regiments  which  were  expected 
have  arrived.  We  have  given,  or  are  giving,  every  man  we  can  spare 
for  Delhi,  and  the  force  before  the  city  must  be  seven  or  eight  thousand 
men.  But  the  insurgents  must  now  have  become  very  numerous,  and 
are  evidently  very  enterprising.  They  continually  attempt  to  turn  our 
flanks  and  cut  off  our  communications  with  Kurnal. 

Our  position  is  a  very  strong  one  along  a  low  ridge  of  rock.  Its 
defects  are  its  extent,  and  the  low  suburbs  of  the  town  which  extend 
along  its  right  flank.  If  we  had  troops  enough  to  hold  the  whole  ground 
in  strength,  from  the  Jumna  to  the  canal,  it  would  be  very  strong  indeed. 
I  doubt  much  if  we  shall  be  able  to  take  the  place  until  the  cold  weather, 
and  before  reinforcements  arrive  from  England. 

Our  soldiers  fight  admirably,  but  I  do  not  think  that  our  leaders  are 
as  able  and  active  as  is  desirable.  The  old  paralysing  system  of  senior- 
ity is  still  in  full  force.  Neville  Chamberlain  has  joined,  but  has  been 
ill  ever  since  his  arrival,  probably  consequent  on  the  exposure  attending 
a  rapid  journey.  If  his  health  admits  of  active  exertion,  he  will  prove  a 
host  in  himself.  I  urged  General  Reed  to  supersede  General  Hewitt  at 
Meerut,  but  he  demurred,  and  affects  to  think  that  Hewitt  can  do  no 
harm  now.  Your  Lordship  may  depend  on  it  that  such  an  officer  must 
be  a  fatal  incubus  on  all  around  him.  So  long  as  he  is  in  command, 
the  troops  at  Meerut  will  do  nothing.  There  is  but  one  opinion  through- 
out the  army.  An  active  officer  with  half  his  means  might  do  great 
things.  He  might,  for  instance,  prevent  the  Rohilkund  Brigade  from 
crossing  the  Ganges.  He  might  have  the  country  scoured  all  along  the 
right  bank  of  the  Jumna,  and  the  Goojurs  kept  in  order. 

We  are  doing  well  in  the  Punjab.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  good 
conduct  of  the  people,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Punjab  troops,  and  the  zeal 
of  our  officers.  The  old  Sikhs  are  coming  forward  in  every  quarter  for 
service.  The  Punjab  force  and  Military  Police  will  amount,  in  another 
month  or  six  weeks,  to  nearly  forty  thousand  men.  I  could  raise  any 
number  of  soldiers.  But  I  do  not  like  to  collect  more.  I  think  it  sound 
policy  not  to  have  too  many,  until  I  see  more  European  troops  in  the 
arena.  Directly  I  heard  that  regiments  were  arriving,  I  should  like  to 
add  to  our  force,  so  as  to  be  able  to  send  down  a  good  body  early  in  the 
cold  weather. 

Next   to   European   soldiers  we   require   money.      The  North-West 


102  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

Provinces,  for  the  time,  are  lost.  The  country  is  overrun  by  banditti. 
Trade  is  paralysed.  The  ground  is  not  sown,  and  the  crops  of  last 
harvest  even  are  wasted.  I  think  that  England  must  come  forward  in 
this  crisis  and  supply  the  sinews  of  war.  We  shall  also  require  all  kinds 
of  warlike  stores — rifles,  muskets,  ammunition.  In  a  short  time  there 
will  scarcely  be  ammunition  for  the  Enfield  rifles  in  use.  Four  thousand 
now  in  the  Ferozepore  magazine  are  not  distributed  to  the  European 
regiments  on  this  account.  I  do  not  think  that  more  than  a  million  of 
the  proper  kind  of  cartridges  are  available.  It  appears  that  they  are 
made  with  a  particular  kind  of  powder.  I  have  asked  Lord  Elphinstone 
to  endeavour  to  supply  a  quantity  of  it.  I  have  offered  General  Reed  to 
send  him  down  a  couple  of  thousand  of  Golab  Sing's  troops  to  maintain 
his  communications  with  Kurnal.  There  is  some  risk,  no  doubt,  in  this 
measure  ;  but  much  less  than  now  occurs  from  the  want  of  men  for  this 
duty.  The  loss  of  our  convoys  would  prove  very  calamitous.  I  think 
it  will  be  politic  to  go  on  subsidising  Ameer  Dost  Mohammed.  It  will 
not  do  to  stop  payment  just  now. 

Again,  he  writes  to  Lord  Canning  on  July  5  : — 

I  enclose  a  copy  of  a  letter  from  Sir  H.  Barnard  before  Delhi  which 
will  show  you  what  he  considered  were  our  prospects  on  the  ist  instant. 
Since  then  the  sortie  of  the  3rd  has  taken  place,  of  which  we  have  heard 
nothing  except  that  the  insurgents  had  been  repulsed.  From  the  letters 
which  I  have  seen  from  the  army,  it  would  appear  that  the  mutineers 
show  great  enterprise,  but  do  not  fight  well,  except  their  Artillery,  which, 
strange  to  say,  is  considered  to  be  served  well  and  to  be  admirably 
directed.  This,  however,  I  do  not  believe.  Our  casualties  show  that 
such  cannot  be  the  case.  But  all  natives  are  clever  at  taking  up  posi- 
tions which  our  officers  as  a  rule  go  straight  at.  The  continued  rein- 
forcements which  the  mutineers  receive  is  the  most  unfortunate  part  of 
the  business.  Not  only  are  their  numbers  thus  recruited,  but  their 
courage  also  is  sustained.  It  is  very  sad  to  think  of  the  several  excel- 
lent opportunities  our  officers  have  had  of  inflicting  severe  punishment 
which  they  have  neglected.  When  I  pointed  out  to  General  Reed  that 
General  Hewitt  ought  to  be  removed  from  his  command,  he  seemed  to 
think  that  the  latter  had  done  rather  well  than  otherwise  !  I  feel  con- 
vinced that  such  is  not  the  opinion  of  the  army,  and  that,  if  we  are  to 
weather  the  present  storm,  we  must  have  very  different  commandexS 
from  General  Hewitt.  Such  a  soldier  as  Lumsden,  Nicholson,  Daly,  and 
many  others  whom  I  could  mention,  would  have  prevented  the  Rohilkund 
Brigade  from  crossing,  and,  had  they  found  it  already  crossed,  would 
have  inflicted  great  loss  on  it  before  it  could  have  reached  Delhi.  Offi- 
cers affirm,  but  I  cannot  credit  it,  that  the  insurgents  moved  with  eight 
hundred  carts,  with  elephants,  and  with  treasure.  A  good  officer  with 
two  or  three  hundred  men  will  succeed  where  an  incapable  one  will  fail 
with  many  hundreds— nay,  where  such  a  man  will  not  make  an  effort. 


i8S7  THE   PUNJAB    AND    DELHI.  IO3 

As  regards  the  Punjab,  we  can  do  very  well  with  our  own  means,  but 
we  shall  not  be  able  to  give  any  more  effective  assistance,  I  fear,  to  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  at  least  in  European  troops — especially  if  we  con- 
tinue to  hold  Peshawur.  He  has  three  of  our  Punjab  corps  of  Infantry, 
the  Guides,  the  ist  Punjab  Infantry,  and  the  4th  Sikhs.  The  two  former 
are  the  best  we  have.  The  Punjab  Cavalry  was  never  very  good,  and 
half  of  it  is  composed  of  Hindustanis.  We  have  raised  a  considerable 
body  of  Sikh  and  Pathan  Cavalry,,  some  of  which  have  gone  to  Delhi ; 
some  form  escorts  for  envoys,  and  the  greater  part  are  holding,  or  helping 
to  hold,  the  frontier.  But  we  could  manage  to  send  down  a  considerable 
number  still,  and  have  offered  to  do  so. 

I  trust  that  your  Lordship  has  written  home  urgently  for  plenty  of 
European  troops.  Too  many  cannot  come  out.  The  more  soldiers  and 
money  England  can  send,  the  cheaper  it  will  be  in  the  end.  I  should 
not  myself  be  in  the  least  surprised  if  disaffection  spread  to  the  Bombay 
army,  which  has  many  Hindustanis  in  its  ranks.  I  can  raise  any  number 
of  good  Infantry  in  the  Punjab  in  the  space  of  three  months.  The  arrange- 
ments ■already  made  will  give  us  14,490  Infantry,  and,  if  necessary,  the 
four  companies  of  each  of  the  seventeen  corps  (that  is  without  including 
the  Guides)  could  form  the  nucleus  of  the  seventeen  new  regiments,  thus 
adding  some  7,850  men  to  the  force.  Thus  we  should  have  twenty  regi- 
ments of  Punjab  Infantry  and  fourteen  police  battalions,  equal  to  31,280 
soldiers. 

Should  your  Lordship  approve  of  this  proposal,  and  will  let  me  have 
due  notice,  I  could  commence  carrying  out  the  scheme,  so  as  to  have  the 
additional  regiments  ready  by  the  time  the  troops  were  arrived  from 
England  or  a  little  afterwards. 

After  the  fall  of  Delhi,  or  a  little  after  that  period,  I  would  suggest 
that  as  many  of  the  Hindustan  Sepoys  as  desired  it  should  be  allowed 
to  take  their  discharge.  As  they  now  are,  they  are  worse  than  use- 
less, being  both  dangerous  and  expensive.  We  are  obliged,  not  only 
to  pay  them,  but  our  loyal  soldiers  are  hampered  by  having  to  watch 
them. 

I  would  strongly  urge  on  your  Lordship  the  propriety  of  coming  up 
the  country  as  early  as  possible  after  the  arrival  of  the  European  troops, 
and  getting  by  your  side  three  or  four  of  the  best  officers  in  the  country. 
You  could,  with  their  aid,  elaborate  a  scheme  for  reforming  the  army 
and  placing  it  on  a  proper  basis  in  a  very  short  time.  But,  unless  this 
be  done,  months  may  elapse  without  any  real  results.  If  we  take  Delhi 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  disaffection  will  cease  to  spread.  At  any 
rate,  it  will  lose  its  power.  Without  guns  and  material  or  any  strong 
fortress  to  fall  back  on,  the  insurgents  must  dwindle  away.  But  if  Delhi 
do  not  fall,  we  shall  have  a  hard  task  to  preserve  our  supremacy  until 
October  and  November,  before  which  time  I  apprehend  that  no  larj^-^e 
reinforcements  can  arrive.  However,  even  then,  we  should  recover  our 
hold  in  the  country,  provided  able  officers  be  selected  to  command.  The 
country  will  be   reconquered  as  rapidly  as  it  has  been   lost.     I  see  that 


I04  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

there  are  eleven  regiments  at  the  Cape  and  nine  at  Malta.     Could  not 
your  Lordship  send  for  two  or  three  from  the  former  place  ? 

2  P.M. — A  message  has  just  come  in  from  Delhi,  copy  of  which  I 
have  added  to  my  official  letter,  stating  that  Major  Coke  had  recovered 
Alipore  and  repulsed  the  insurgents,  and  refers  to  an  offer  which  was 
said  to  have  come  from  the  King  to  put  the  place  into  our  hands. 

On  the  following  day  he  writes  again  : — • 

July  6. 

Yesterday  evening  I  received  a  message  from  the  Commander-in- 
Chief.  Copy  of  it  and  of  my  reply  is  herewith  enclosed.  As  I  said  to 
General  Reed,  I  am  not  aware  of  your  Lordship's  views  ;  but  I  am 
myself  fully  convinced  in  my  own  mind  that  the  policy  which  I  have  indi- 
cated is  that  which  circumstances  dictate. 

Did  we  possess  the  means,  there  can  be  no  question  that  it  would  be 
desirable  to  storm  Delhi  and  destroy  or  expel  the  mutineers.  But  it  is 
clear  that  we  cannot  take  the  town  by  a  regular  siege,  and  that  there  is 
much  danger  that  an  assault  will  fail.  In  the  latter  case  we  should  have 
to  wait  for  reinforcements  from  England  with  a  crippled  and  dispirited 
army.  There  is  no  knowing,  no  foreseeing  to  what  extent  disaffection 
and  mutiny  may  not  extend.  The  most  important  political  consequences 
may  be  anticipated  from  depriving  the  mutineers  of  Delhi.  The  minds 
of  all  native  chiefs  will  be  assured,  and  the  insurgents  will  be  left  with- 
out a  stronghold  and  rallying  point.  The  desertion  of  the  King  will 
cripple  the  whole  of  the  Mohammedan  party.  Without  heavy  guns, 
without  strong  fortifications,  they  must  disperse  and  dwindle  away.  I 
doubt  very  much  if  the  King  will  be  able  to  give  us  Delhi,  or,  what  is 
the  same  thing,  enable  us  to  take  it  without  loss.  But  if  he  can  manage 
to  admit  a  single  regiment  into  the  palace,  Delhi  would  become  untenable 
to  the  enemy. 

General  Barnard's  letter  of  the  ist  does  not  give  me  the  impression 
that  he  is  satisfied  with  our  position.  I  gather  that,  if  left  to  his  own 
judgment,  he  would  rather  not  risk  an  assault.  But  he  is  unable  to  see 
the  difficulties  and  complications  which  delay  must  involve.  He  cannot 
grasp  the  whole  political  bearings  of  his  situation.  Delay,  no  doubt,  is 
an  evil  of  the  first  magnitude,  but  failure  would  prove  infinitely  more 
calamitous. 

I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  a  single  regiment  of  the  line  in  the  Bengal 
Presidency,  with  the  exception  of  the  66th  (Ghoorkhas),  who  will  not 
desert  us.  I  know  no  regiment  in  the  Punjab  composed  of  Hindustanis 
which  I  would  trust.  Exclusive  of  the  Punjabi  troops,  the  Kumaon 
Battalion  and  the  ist  Irregular  Cavalry  are  the  only  corps  likely  to  re- 
main staunch.  The  army  before  Delhi  is  in  a  very  critical  state. 
Though  well  able  to  fight  a  pitched  battle  in  the  field,  it  has  much  diffi- 
culty in  maintaining  its  position,  owing  to  the  smallness  of  its  numbers, 
the  peculiarities  of  the  ground,  and  the  absence  of  a  sufficient  body  of 
reliable  Cavalry.     The  fiank  of  the  army  is  continually  turned  when  the 


1857  THE   PUNJAB   AND    DELHI.  I05 

insurgents  get  into  its  rear  ;  and,  though  the  troops  drive  them  away, 
the  movements  are  repeated.  If  the  enemy  had  only  the  skill  to  detach 
a  force  higher  up,  I  do  not  see  what  is  to  prevent  their  interrupting  our 
communications  and  cutting  off  our  supplies. 

From  Delhi  to  Umballa,  a  distance  of  upwards  of  one  hundred  and 
ten  miles,  the  whole  line  is  open  to  attack.  General  Barnard's  account 
of  the  state  of  our  troops  after  the  battle  of  the  23rd  ultimo  was  most 
dispiriting.  And,  even  now,  though  he  quotes  our  success  in  so  many 
conflicts,  we  have  never  yet  inflicted  such  a  loss  as  to  deter  the  enemy 
from  renewing  the  struggle  in  the  open  field.  We  can  get  no  news  from 
below  of  any  authenticity.  One  day  Sir  H.  Wheeler  is  said  to  be  sur- 
rounded at  Cawnpore,  with  difficulty  maintaining  himself.  Another  day 
it  is  reported  that  he  is  marching  on  Agra.  But  from  whatever  quarter 
certain  information  is  received,  we  hear  of  disaffection  and  mutiny. 

I  had  written  so  far  when  I  received  a  message  from  Delhi  that  Sir  H. 
Barnard  died  yesterday  of  cholera.  This  fearful  scourge  attacked  the 
army  at  Kurnal  going  down,  and  again  appeared  at  Delhi,  where  the 
Guides  lost  some  men  ;  but  a  timely  fall  of  rain  drove  it  away.  In  this 
season  of  the  year,  and  still  more  probably  a  couple  of  months  later, 
much  sickness  may  be  anticipated. 

I  take  this  opportunity  of  enclosing  a  note,  which  I  have  had  by  me 
for  some  days,  from  Brigadier-General  S.  Cotton.  In  it  is  a  valuable 
suggestion  for  the  employment  of  officers  of  the  Indian  army  with  regi- 
ments when  they  first  land.  Few  Englishmen  on  their  arrival  in  India 
will  believe  in  the  fatal  effects  of  the  Bengal  sun.  The  men  are  out  all 
day  and  get  into  mischief,  and  the  medical  officers  are  not  aware  of  the 
necessity  for  dealing  promptly  with  disease.  I  have  often  heard  that 
regiments  lose  more  men  in  the  first  year  of  their  service  than  in  the 
next  three  or  four.  Now  I  think  that  General  Cotton's  precautions  would 
save  many  lives.  We  are  all  quiet  in  the  Punjab.  Recruiting  going  on 
famously. 

P.  S. — If  you  will  take  the  best  officer  available,  I  suggest  that  you 
appoint  Brigadier-General  Chamberlain  to  the  command  of  the  army 
before  Delhi. 

While  John  Lawrence  was  doing  all  that  these  letters  imply  to 
sustain  the  army  before  Delhi,  dangers  were  thickening  at  his  own 
doors.  At  each  of  the  three  military  stations  of  Sealkote,  Jhelum, 
and  Rawul  Pindi,  mutiny  was  smouldering,  and  might,  at  any  time, 
burst  into  a  flame.  At  each  of  them  there  was  a  regiment  or  more 
of  Hindustanis,  many  of  whom  where  wavering  even  then,  and  all 
of  them  would,  beyond  doubt,  turn  against  us  in  the  event  of  a 
reverse  before  Delhi,  or  even  of  any  prolonged  inaction  there.  At 
Sealkote  and  Jhelum  there  was  not  a  single  European  soldier  of 
the  line.  At  Rawul  Pindi  there  were  only  500,  together  with  six  guns 
and  a  few  Artillerymen,  and  what  were  they  amongst  so  many  ? 


I06  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

Sealkote  had  been  originally  selected  as  the  site  of  a  cantonment 
by  Sir  Charles  Napier,  that  it  might  act  as  a  check  on  Golab  Sing. 
That  danger  had  never  hitherto  been  a  real  one.  But  it  might  become 
real  now,  when  the  sword  of  even  the  weak  and  wily  Dogra  Rajpoot, 
if  it  were  thrown  into  the  evenly  balanced  scale,  might  weigh  it 
down  against  us.  Jhelum  and  Rawul  Pindi  were  both  situated  on 
the  Grand  Trunk  Road  between  Lahore  and  Peshawur,  and  it  was 
obvious  that  a  successful  rising  at  either  of  them  would  cut  the 
Punjab  into  two  halves,  and  would  leave  Huzara  and  Peshawur,  as 
John  Lawrence  was  fond  of  expressing  it,  '  in  the  air.'  Would  it 
be  possible  to  put  off  the  evil  day  till  Delhi  should  fall,  when  the 
danger,  it  might  be  hoped,  would  disappear  of  itself  ?  Or  would  it 
be  better  to  attempt  to  disarm  the  troops  at  one  or  other  of  the 
three  places,  at  the  risk  of  causing  a  general  rising  all  along  the  line  ? 

Such  was  the  question  which  pressed  for  decision.  Sir  John 
Lawrence  determined  first  to  try  delay,  and  advised  the  military 
authorities  at  each  of  the  three  stations  to  weed  out  their  worst 
characters,  to  promise  the  '  Order  of  Merit '  to  anyone  who  should 
do  us  conspicuous  service,  and  to  encourage  their  men  to  '  volun- 
teer '  for  active  service  against  the  mutineers.  This  last  process 
would  not,  of  course,  induce  our  officers  to  relax  a  single  precau- 
tion against  treachery.  But  it  might  serve  to  employ  and  amuse 
the  men,  to  confirm  the  wavering  and  to  discourage  the  malcon- 
tents. Finding  that  the  regiment  at  Rawul  Pindi  had  thus  '  volun- 
teered,' he  made  them  a  speech  which  seems  to  have  roused  real 
enthusiasm  among  them,  and  as  he  went  away,  he  '  could  hear 
them  cheering  for  a  long  distance  as  they  returned  to  their  lines.' 

But  Delhi  did  not  fall,  and  gave  no  sign  of  doing  so.  *  Symp- 
toms of  uneasiness,'  to  adopt  the  euphemism  common  at  the  time, 
began  to  show  themselves  among  the  Sepoys  at  these  unprotected 
stations,  and  were  soon  followed  by  those  of  active  disaffection. 
The  danger  was  at  its  greatest  at  Jhelum,  and  Sir  John  Lawrence 
determined  to  lessen  it  there,  in  the  only  way  in  which  he  could  do 
so,  by  increasing  that  at  his  own  doors.  He  brought  two  of  the 
disaffected  companies  to  Rawul  Pindi  from  Jhelum,  and  supplied 
their  place  by  a  strong  body  of  Military  Police,  and  of  horse  and 
foot  levies  which  were  above  suspicion.  The  danger  being  thus 
equalised,  it  was  time,  he  thought,  to  attempt  a  simultaneous  dis- 
armament at  both  places.  Half  of  his  small  number  of  guns  and 
more  than  half  of  his  small  body  of  Europeans  he  sent  off  to  Jhe- 
lum, and,  with  the  small  remainder,  he  prepared  to  disarm  the  regi- 
ment at  Rawul  Pindi. 


i857  THE   PUNJAB   AND    DELHI.  107 

It  was  the  7th  of  July.  The  plan  was  carefully  matured  with 
the  military  authorities,  but  just  as  he  was  about  to  address  the 
men,  they  became  alarmed,  broke  away,  got  into  their  lines,  and 
armed  themselves.  '  But  by  good  management  and  the  influence 
of  the  officers  of  the  58th,  who  behaved  admirably,  nearly  all  the 
men  gave  up  their  arms.  Some  forty  ran  off,  but  were  pursued 
and  killed  or  taken.'  Such  was  the  plain,  unvarnished  account 
given  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  Lord  Canning.  It  was  never  his 
way  to  speak  boastfully  of  what  he  had  done  himself,  and  I  cannot 
find  in  any  of  his  letters  to  his  friends  describing  the  events  of  the 
day,  aught  which  implies  that  it  was  very  nearly  being  his  last  day, 
that  he  had  been  in  any  exceptional  danger,  or  had  put  forth  any 
exceptional  effort. 

Fortunately  his  acting  Secretary,  Arthur  Brandreth,  has  not  been 
so  reticent,  and  now  that  Lord  Lawrence  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
human  praise  or  blame,  he  has  told  us  something  of  the  personal 
courage  and  personal  influence  of  his  chief  on  this  eventful  day, 
which  we  should  probably  never  have  heard  from  his  own  lips. 

I  well  recollect  (he  says)  Lord  Lawrence's  anxiety  about  the  arrange- 
ments for  the  disarmament,  so  as  to  avoid,  if  possible,  any  bloodshed. 
He  knew  the  native  soldiers  well,  and  recognised  how  few  of  them  were 
really  ill-disposed — how  entirely  the  majority  were  led  away  by  their 
ignorance  and  stupidity,  which  left  them  an  easy  prey  to  the  designing 
emissaries  of  the  Oude  nobles.  That  disarmament  very  nearly  ended 
Lord  Lawrence's  career.  The  Artillery  had  orders  to  fire  the  moment 
the  mutineers  broke,  to  prevent  their  obtaining  the  cover  of  their  lines, 
where  they  could  have  defended  themselves.  Owing  to  the  accidental 
discharge  of  a  cavalry  carbine,  the  mutineers  were  alarmed  and  broke, 
before  Lawrence,  who,  with  his  usual  disregard  of  himself  was  standing 
in  front  of  them,  had  time  to  address  them.  And  the  guns  would  at 
once  have  swept  Lawrence  and  his  party  from  the  field,  but  for  the 
promptitude  of  the  Brigadier  Colonel  Campbell,  luckily  an  old  artillery- 
man. The  mutineers  consequently  got  to  their  lines,  but  Lawrence  at 
once  galloped  after  them,  and,  regardless  of  the  eagerness  with  which 
they  were  all  loading  around  them,  called  to  them  to  listen  and  not  to 
cause  their  own  destruction.  He  thought  nothing  of  his  own  peril  in 
his  anxiety  to  save  them  ;  and,  with  Colonel  Barstow's  aid,  he  was  suc- 
cessful. It  was  curious  as  we  rode  up  and  down  the  line  to  see  the 
frightened  excitement  of  the  men.  All  had,  by  this  time,  loaded,  and  a 
single  mistake  or  false  step  would  have  led  to  the  first  shot,  and  then 
we  could  not  have  restrained  them.  But  under  the  eye  of  such  a  chief 
everyone  did  his  best  to  restore  confidence  by  reason  and  argument,  and, 
as  above  mentioned,  successfully.  It  was  this  eager  personal  work  which 
led  to  so  much  of  Lord  Lawrence's  success. 


I08  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

How  much  Sir  John  Lawrence  himself  rejoiced  at  the  saving  of 
human  life,  which  was  the  result  of  his  efforts,  may  be  gathered 
from  a  letter  he  wrote  a  few  days  afterwards  to  General  Sydney 
Cotton,  who  was  likely  to  have  many  similar  opportunities. 

I  must  say  that  I  was  very  glad  we  did  not  fire  on  the  58th.  Our  for- 
bearance had  a  good  effect.  If  anything  can  convince  the  Sepoys  that 
we  are  sincerely  desirous  to  save  them,  it  would  be  by  such  conduct.  In 
talking  to  them  that  day  I  asked  them  why  they  had  bolted.  They  re- 
plied, '  Because  you  were  going  to  fire  the  guns  on  us.'  I  replied,  '  If 
such  were  our  intention,  why  did  we  not  fire  ?  The  fact  that  we  did 
not  do  so,  when  you  ran,  ought  to  convince  you  of  this.'  They  remarked, 
'  But  why  take  away  our  arms  ?  We  had  committed  no  fault.'  I  added, 
'True,  you  had  not;  but  your  relations  and  friends  and  countrymen 
had.  We  only  do  it  to  protect  ourselves.  The  arms  are  not  yours, 
they  belong  to  Government,  to  give  or  to  take  away.'  The  officers 
behaved  exceedingly  well,  and  the  corps,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  is  a 
good  one.  But  just  now  we  can  trust  none  of  them.  Even  our  own 
Punjabis  in  some  cases  get  contaminated. 

It  would  be  well  if  the  spirit  of  this  and  other  letters  of  Sir  John 
Lawrence  had  pervaded  all  that  was  said  and  written  and  done 
during  the  crisis  of  the  Mutiny,  and  still  more  after  all  danger  was 
over.  We  can  hardly  be  surprised  that  it  was  not  so,  but  it  is  im- 
possible to  deny  that  Englishmen  would,  in  that  case,  have  been 
able  to  look  back  upon  the  records  of  the  heroic  struggle  with  an 
unalloyed  satisfaction  which  they  can  hardly  feel  now.  The  litera- 
ture of  the  time,  English  as  well  as  Indian,  contains  records  of 
word  and  deed  which  it  is  impossible  to  justify  or  even  to  excuse. 
It  is  easy,  no  doubt,  for  those  who  have  never  known  what  it  is  to 
carry  their  lives  in  their  hands,  for  a  period  of  many  months  to- 
gether, amidst  a  vast  alien  population,  and  can  look  back  calmly, 
at  a  respectful  distance  of  time  and  place,  on  all  that  happened 
then,  to  be  too  harsh  in  their  condemnation  of  those  who  lost  some- 
thing of  their  heads  and  of  their  hearts  in  the  agony  of  the  struggle. 
But  it  is  certainly  not  easy  to  admire  too  much  those  few  who  man- 
aged to  retain  the  command  of  both,  men  who  struck  their  hardest 
when  it  was  necessary  to  strike,  but  who  sheathed  the  sword  as 
soon  as  it  was  possible  to  do  so  ;  men,  who  in  dealing  out  stern 
justice,  never  forgot  to  temper  it  with  mercy,  and  refused  to  con- 
demn a  whole  race  for  the  crimes,  or  the  ignorance,  or,  it  may  be, 
the  blind  panic,  of  a  very  small  part  of  it,  and  among  such  men 
Sir  John  Lawrence  must,  in  my  judgment,  always  hold  one  of  the 
most  conspicuous  places. 


i857  THE    PUNJAB   AND    DELHI.  IO9 

The  Jhelum  business  did  not  end  so  fortunately,  but  the  Chief 
Commissioner  was  not  to  blame  for  it.  The  arrangements  for  the 
disarmament  had  been  made  with  at  least  equal  care.  A  much 
larger  force  than  that  which  remained  at  Rawul  Pindi,  some  1,500 
men  in  all,  had  been  detached  for  the  duty,  and  John  Lawrence 
himself  had  strongly  advised — he  could  not  do  more — the  officer 
in  command,  that  in  case  the  Sepoys  should  take  refuge  in  their 
lines,  our  attack  should  be  delivered,  not  in  the  front,  where  the 
lines  were  fortified,  but  in  the  rear,  where  they  were  quite  unpro- 
tected. The  14th  Native  Regiment  at  Jhelum  had  long  borne  a 
bad  name,  and  seeing,  early  on  the  morning  of  the  7th,  the  Rawul 
Pindi  force  approaching,  they  loaded  and  rushed  for  their  lines. 
Our  attack  was  delivered  in  front,  and  was  repulsed  with  heavy 
loss.  A  running  and  a  desperate  fight  was  maintained  throughout 
the  day,  and,  when  night  fell,  the  rebels  had  with  difficulty  been 
driven  to  an  adjoining  village,  and  we  had  lost  a  gun,  100  horses, 
and  150  men.  The  fighting  seemed  likely  to  be  renewed  on  the 
following  day.  But  during  the  night  the  Sepoys  lost  heart  and 
fled,  and  in  one  way  or  another,  within  a  week  or  two,  almost  all 
of  them  fell  into  our  hands. 

The  telegraph  had  carried,  hour  by  hour,  to  Sir  John  Lawrence, 
who  was  at  Rawul  Pindi,  full  details  of  the  progress  of  the  fight. 
He  had  been,  as  we  have  seen,  in  sufficient  peril  himself  on  the 
morning  of  that  day.  But  he  called  a  Council  of  officers  at  his 
house,  and  with  a  confidence  in  himself  and  in  the  future  which 
must  have  been  contagious,  proposed  to  send  off  to  Jhelum  nearly 
half  of  all  the  force  that  remained  to  him  !  They  were  off  in  a  few 
hours  under  orders  to  do  a  forced  march  of  thirty  miles  on  that, 
and  of  forty  on  the  following  night ;  so  that  in  thirty-six  hours  at 
latest  the  disaster  would  be  retrieved.  '  I  well  remember,'  says 
Brandreth,  '  our  finding  the  supply  of  powder-cases  insufficient,  and 
Sir  John  at  once  decided  to  send  off  all  with  the  reinforcements, 
leaving  us  dependent  on  what  Colonel  Cox  could  make  up  during 
the  night.' 

It  was  a  short-lived  success  for  the  mutineers.  But,  unfortu- 
nately, it  had  lasted  long  enough  to  cause  the  rising  at  Sealkote, 
which  had  been  so  long  feared,  and  under  circumstances  of  unusual 
difficulty,  had  been  so  long  postponed. 

There  were  at  Sealkote,  under  Brigadier  Brind,  about  700  armed 
Sepoys  and  250  mounted  troopers.  The  European  force  which 
had  been  stationed  in  that  large  cantonment  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Mutiny  had,  after  full  deliberation,  and  with   a  full  sense  of  his 


no  LIFE    OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

responsibility,  been  withdrawn  from  it  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  to 
form  a  part  of  the  Movable  Column.  Few  more  difficult  ques- 
tions had  come  before  him.  The  local  authorities,  naturally 
enough,  took  a  local  view,  and  were  for  standing  fast  where  they 
were.  But  the  Chief  Commissioner,  seeing  that  there  were  not 
enough  Europeans  to  hold  all  the  Stations,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
to  give  the  maximum  of  efficiency  to  the  Movable  Column,  deter- 
mined to  run  the  lesser  risk,  and  to  withdraw  the  Europeans  from 
a  position  which  no  one  but  Sir  Charles  Napier  had  ever  thought 
to  be  a  place  of  prime  importance,  and  which  he  himself  was  con- 
vinced was  safe,  even  now,  from  all  attack  by  Golab  Sing.  At  the 
same  time  he  advised  Brigadier  Brind,  if  he  doubted  the  fidelity  of 
his  native  troops,  to  disarm  them  before  the  Europeans  left.  After- 
wards it  would  be  too  late.  They  had,  hitherto,  shown  no  open 
sign  of  discontent,  and  Brind,  generously  declining  to  secure  his 
own  safety  and  that  of  his  officers  at  the  expense  of  his  men,  for 
six  weeks  from  that  time,  by  dint  of  extraordinary  tact  and  cour- 
age, managed  to  keep  them  straight.  He  knew  that  he  was  sitting 
on  a  powder  magazine,  but  was  bound  to  do  so  with  a  smiling 
face. 

At  last  the  spark  was  applied  by  the  momentary  success  of  the 
"mutineers  at  Jhelum.  The  infantry  connived  at  the  escape  of  their 
officers.  But  the  troopers,  who  were  more  bloodthirstily  inclined, 
murdered  every  European  on  whom  they  could  lay  hands.  Brind 
himself,  a  missionary  with  his  family,  and  two  much  respected 
doctors  among  the  number.  The  work  of  plunder  followed.  All 
the  houses  in  the  station  were  sacked,  the  cutcherries  destroyed, 
the  jail  broken  open,  the  prisoners  set  free,  and  worse  than  all, 
some  of  the  officers  of  the  Punjab  Military  Police — the  one  in- 
stance in  the  whole  of  the  Mutiny  in  which  they  did  so — played  us 
false.  Even  the  domestic  servants,  whose  devotion  and  fidelity 
were  generally  proverbial,  turned  upon  their  masters. 

But  even  here  there  were  many  redeeming  points  in  the  conduct 
of  the  mutineers.  They  appear  to  have  regarded  their  officers, 
especially  Colonel  Farquharson  and  Captain  Caulfield  of  the  46th, 
with  genuine  affection.  They  kept  them  safely  under  guard  the 
whole  day  and  then  allowed  them  to  escape.  On  parting  with  them 
several  of  the  men  shed  tears,  touched  their  feet — the  most  respect- 
ful mode  of  native  salutation — and  deplored  the  separation.  On 
being  urged  not  to  join  in  the  Mutiny,  they  said  that  they  could 
not  avoid  it,  they  must  needs  fight  for  the  general  cause.  So  con- 
fident did  they  feel  of  success,  that  they  offered  to  secure  Colonel 


i857  THE    PUNJAB    AND    DELHI.  Ill 

Farquharson  2,000  rupees  a  month  and  a  residence  in  the  Hills  if 
he  would  consent  to  make  common  cause  with  them,  and  retain 
his  command  !  This  was  an  incident  which  touched  Sir  John 
Lawrence  greatly,  and  to  which  he  was  fond  of  recurring  when  he 
heard  wholesale  denunciations  of  the  Sepoys,  and  demands  for 
more  and  more  wholesale  executions. 

The  work  of  plunder  over,  the  mutineers,  with  one  old  gun 
which  belonged  to  the  Station,  marched  off  in  good  order  for  Delhi. 
And  Delhi  they  would  probably  have  reached,  had  not  John  Nich- 
olson with  his  Column  lain  just  so  far  off  from  their  route  as  to 
make  it  seem  quite  impossible  that  he  could  intercept  them.  By 
his  famous  flank  march,  involving  as  it  did  miracles  of  speed  and 
endurance,  he  managed  to  throw  himself  across  their  route,  and  by 
the  curious  irony  of  destiny,  with  the  very  European  force,  which, 
if  it  had  been  detained  at  Sealkote,  might  have  overawed  them 
there. 

But  of  this  more  presently.  And  meanwhile  we  must  try  to 
follow  the  first  acts  of  the  newly-fledged  Brigadier-General  with 
especial  reference  to  the  relations  which,  true  to  his  erratic  and 
masterful  self,  he  still  bore  to  the  subject  of  this  biography.  I  have 
said  that  strange  things  might  be  expected  when  Nicholson  found 
himself,  for  the  first  time,  at  the  head  of  an  army  in  the  field,  and 
not  many  days  passed  before  he  showed  that,  in  spite  of  his  good 
resolutions,  he  would  be  true  to  himself,  alike  in  his  impetuous  gal- 
lantry and  in  his  sublime  disregard  of  all  authority.  He  had  told 
Sir  John  Lawrence  in  a  letter  which  I  have  already  quoted  that,  so 
far  as  he  was  concerned,  '  byegones  should  be  byegones  ; '  and  it 
was  well  that  he  had  done  so,  for  there  were  enough  grounds  of 
complaint  and  misunderstanding  ahead,  to  satisfy  the  most  insatia- 
ble appetite  for  that  species  of  excitement. 

*I  was  glad,'  writes  John  Lawrence,  'to  receive  your  last  note, 
and  to  find  that  you  had  given  up  all  old  matters.  I  assure  you 
that  I  endeavour  in  all  public  affairs  to  be  guided  by  a  sense  of  my 
duty.  Where  I  can  conciliate  those  working  with  me,  it  is  my 
object  to  do  so.  When  I  cannot,  I  try  to  offend  them  as  little  as 
possible.' 

Already,  on  leaving  Rawul  Pindi,  Nicholson  had  taken  a  step 
which  might  have  involved  a  breach  with  any  man  who  was  less 
considerate  than  his  chief.  He  had  pressed  Sir  John  Lawrence  in 
conversation  to  increase  the  size  of  his  Column  by  transferring  to  it 
the  one  European  regiment  which  kept  the  Sepoys  of  that  place 
and  of  Jhelum  in  check,  and  were  ultimately  to  be  used  in  disarm- 


112  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

ing  them  both.  Sir  John  had  pointed  out  in  reply  that  the  Column 
was  amply  large  enough  for  what  it  had  to  do  in  the  Punjab,  and 
that  to  abandon  Rawul  Pindi  would  be  to  sever  the  line  of  com- 
munication between  Lahore  and  Peshawur,  and  to  ensure  disor- 
ganisation in  the  surrounding  districts.  Nothing  should  induce 
him  to  take  so  desperate  a  step  till  a  still  more  desperate  state  of 
things  at  Delhi  should  compel  him  to  send  his  last  man  thither. 

Nicholson  left  Rawul  Pindi,  and  straightway  wrote  to  General 
Gowan,  advising  him  to  withdraw  the  European  troops  whether  Sir 
John  Lawrence  consented  or  not !  With  characteristic  frankness 
he  told  his  chief  what  he  had  done,  and  added  what  it  was  hardly 
necessary  to  add,  that  he  had  done  it  only  from  a  sense  of  duty. 
With  equally  characteristic  magnanimity  and  forbearance.  Sir  John 
replied,  '  I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot  agree  with  you  in  your  views 
about  Rawul  Pindi.  So  long  as  you  have  a  European  regiment  with 
the  Movable  Force,  I  do  not  think  that  the  500  European  Infantry 
of  H.M.'s  24th  can  well  be  better  disposed  of  than  at  this  spot. 
But  I  quite  understand  and  admit  the  grounds  on  which  you  wrote 
to  the  General.' 

Nicholson  joined  the  Column  at  Jullundur  on  June  21,  and  his 
first  act  gave  sufficient  proof  that  a  master  spirit  was  in  the  field. 
To  the  mixed  amazement  and  delight  of  those  who  composed  the 
Column,  he  started  with  it  two  days  later  as  if  he  was  going  straight 
to  Delhi.  But  he  had  other  purposes  in  view.  And  by  a  series  of 
admirable  arrangements,  every  one  of  which  was  carried  out  ex- 
actly as  it  ought  to  be,  he  succeeded,  with  800  Europeans,  in  dis- 
arming two  whole  regiments,  the  33rd  and  35th,  one  of  which 
formed  part  of  his  Column  already,  and  which,  had  he  taken  it  to 
Delhi,  would  have  joined  the  mutineers  at  once ;  the  other,  an 
equally  suspicious  regiment,  which  had  been  ordered  to  join  him 
from  Hoshiarpore  on  his  line  of  march.  Not  a  shot  was  fired,  nor 
a  drop  of  blood  shed.  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  delighted  with  the  act 
itself,  and  with  the  manner  in  which  it  had  been  carried  out.  But 
hearing  from  Nicholson  none  of  the  particulars,  he  ventured  in  the 
letter  which  I  have  already  quoted  to  ask  that  he  should  be  kept 
informed  of  what  was  done  and  the  grounds  for  doing  it.  *  I  have 
no  doubt  that  it  is  all  right,  and  that  it  is  on  the  safe  side,  but  I 
wish  to  hear  of  what  is  done,  and  the  grounds  of  it.  A  few  words 
will  suffice.  It  looks  foolish,  my  being  in  charge  of  the  Punjab,  and 
telling  Government  that  this  and  that  has  been  done,  and  not  being 
able  to  add  a  line  as  to  the  reason.' 

The  explanation  came  in  time,  and  his  chief  at  once  replied, 


i857  THE   PUNJAB   AND  DELHI.  II3 

July  7  : — '  I  am  perfectly  satisfied  with  your  note  of  the  5th.  Pray 
don't  think  I  want  to  bother  you.  I  cannot  and  do  not  expect  that 
after  knocking  about  all  day  in  the  sun,  you  should  write  long 
yarns.  On  such  occasions,  a  couple  of  lines  demi-ofificially  will 
satisfy  me,  until  I  get  a  copy  of  your  formal  report.  All  I  want  is 
to  know  what  is  done,  and  the  reason.' 

Nicholson  now  returned  from  Phillour  to  Umritsur,  and,  hearing 
of  the  half  successful  rising  at  Jhelum,  he  at  once  disarmed  the 
regiment  which  was  stationed  there.  Two.  days  later,  still  more 
news  of  the  complete  success  of  the  mutineers  at  Sealkote  reached 
him,  and,  judging  of  the  feelings  of  the  wing  of  cavalry  which  be- 
longed to  his  column,  by  what  its  other  wing  had  just  done  at  Sealkote, 
he  disarmed  that  also,  and  then  gathered  himself  up  for  his  famous 
spring  upon  the  mutineers,  who,  flushed  with  their  success,  and 
never  dreaming  that  he  was  within  striking  distance,  had  set  out 
from  Sealkote  with  their  faces  turned  towards  Delhi.  Their  line 
lay,  so  Nicholson  thought  most  probable,  through  Goordaspore,  near 
the  Ravi.  Thence  they  would  move  on  Nurpore  and  Hoshiarpore, 
and  picking  up  disaffected  detachments  of  hor.se  or  foot,  Regulars 
or  Irregulars,  at  each  of  these  places,  would  bear  down,  with  ever- 
gathering  momentum,  on  the  rear  of  our  hard-pressed  forces  before 
Delhi.  Could  he  reach  Goordaspore  in  time  to  prevent  this  ?  It 
was  over  forty  miles  away.  The  mutineers  had  two  full  days'  start 
of  him  ;  and  the  July  sun,  which  must  be  fatal  to  not  a  few  of  his 
European  soldiers,  would  be  little  or  no  impediment  to  natives.  It 
seemed  a  wild  goose  chase.  But  those  who  knew  Nicholson  well, 
knew  that  he  had  more  than  once  before  now  made  the  impossible 
to  seem  possible  enough. 

The  rest  of  the  day  (the  loth)  was  spent  in  sweeping  off  into  his 
camp  every  gig  and  cart,  every  horse  and  pony  which  could  be 
found  plying  on  the  road  between  Lahore  and  Umritsur.  Many  a 
soldier  who  had  never  crossed  a  horse  before  found  himself  sud- 
denly mounted,  to  the  imminent  risk  of  his  neck,  on  a  charger 
taken  from  the  dismounted  troopers ;  while  ekkas  (light  carts),  war- 
ranted to  carry  two  passengers  only,  were  forced  to  accommodate 
four.     Even  so,  not  a  few  men  had  to  go  on  foot. 

At  dusk  the  march  began,  and,  during  the  comparative  cool  of 
the  night,  gun  carriages  and  over-crowded  carts  and  walkers  man- 
aged to  traverse  in  company  some  twenty-six  miles  of  road.  But 
eighteen  more  miles  still  lay  before  them,  and  these  beneath  the  full 
fury  of  the  July  sun.  Awnings  made  of  the  branches  of  trees  were 
extemporised  by  the  men  who  rode  on  the  ckkas  and  gun-carriages, 

VOL.  II. — 8 


114  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWREN'CE.  1857 

and  the  rough  jokes  of  the  soldiers  as  they  started  afresh,  and  the 
variety  of  the  equipages  and  breakdowns,  recalled  to  more  than 
one  eye-witness  the  road  to  Epsom  on  the  Derby  day.  But  this 
could  not  last  long.  Men  began  to  fall  exhausted  or  dead  by  the 
roadside  ;  and  one  incident  of  the  march,  which  has,  I  think,  never 
found  its  way  into  print,  is  too  characteristic  of  Nicholson  to  be 
omitted  here. 

When  the  sun  was  at  its  fiercest,  the  Column  neared  a  grove  of 
trees  which  seemed  to  promise  a  refreshing  shade  ;  and  some  of  the 
officers,  seeing  the  exhausted  state  of  their  men,  suggested  that  a 
halt  of  an  hour  or  two  might  well  be  called  to  enable  them  to  throw 
themselves  on  the  ground  and  snatch  an  interval  of  repose.  '  No,' 
sternly  replied  Nicholson;  'we  must  press  on.'  But  he  yielded  to 
more  urgent  expostulations,  and  the  worn-out  men  were  soon  asleep 
beneath  the  trees.  After  an  interval  it  occurred  to  one  of  their 
number,  as  he  awoke  from  his  sleep,  to  ask  where  the  general  was. 
Not  seeing  him  amongst  the  sleepers  on  the  ground,  he  looked  back 
to  the  road  which  they  had  left,  and  there,  in  the  very  middle  of  it, 
in  the  full  glare  of  the  sun,  sitting  bolt  upright  upon  his  horse,  and 
perfectly  motionless,  he  saw  John  Nicholson  waiting,  as,  unknown- 
to  them  all,  he  had  been  waiting  from  the  beginning,  with  impatient 
patience  till  his  men  should  have  had  their  rest  out.  The  silent 
protest  did  its  work.  The  exhausted  men  started  up  with  a  strength 
which  was  not  altogether  their  own,  and,  in  the  course  of  the  after- 
noon the  whole  column  reached  Goordaspore. 

Next  morning  news  came  that  the  mutineers  were  in  the  act  of 
crossing  the  Ravi  at  the  Trimmuns  Ghaut,  or  ferry,  about  nine 
miles  off.  There  was  no  time  to  be  lost,  and  a  second  march,  under 
the  same  burning  sun,  brought  the  avenger  of  blood  face  to  face 
with  his  foes.  The  mutinous  troopers,  who  had  done  most  of  the 
work  at  Sealkote,  inflamed  by  bhang,  charged  gallantly  on  Nichol- 
son's mounted  police,  and  put  them  to  a  headlong  flight,  which  was 
not  stopped  till  they  reached  Goordaspore.  But  the  Black  Bess  of 
the  mutineers  Avas  no  match  for  the  Enfield  rifle,  nor  was  the  single 
broken  down  station  gun  which  they  had  carried  off  from  Sealkote 
able  to  hold  its  own  against  Nicholson's  nine.  They  were  soon 
driven  back  towards  the  river,  whose  rising  waters  had  made  the 
ford,  by  which  they  had  so  lately  crossed,  to  be  unfordable,  and 
they  straightway  found  themselves  cooped  up  in  an  island  in  the 
middle  of  the  stream,  while  Nicholson  was  threatening  them  from 
one  bank,  and,  as  they  believed,  a  pursuing  force  from  Jhelum  on 
the  other.     Had  Nicholson's  mounted  police  stood  firm,  they  could 


1857  THE  PUNJAB   AND   DELHI.  1 15 

have  ridden  down  the  mutineers  and  cut  them  to  pieces  in  their 
flight  towards  the  river.  But  his  infantry,  worn  out  by  their  long 
march,  could  do  nothing  now  in  the  way  of  pursuit. 

But  Nicholson  could  afford  to  wait  ;  for  the  mutineers  were  with- 
out boats  and  could  not  escape  from  the  island.  Three  days  suf- 
ficed to  rest  his  troops  and  to  collect  boats,  and  on  the  morning  of 
the  1 6th,  while  his  nine  guns  engrossed  the  attention  of  the  muti- 
neers, he  crossed  unobserved  to  the  lower  part  of  the  island,  and, 
putting  himself,  as  though  he  were  a  simple  subaltern,  at  the  head 
of  his  men,  led  them  against  the  foe.  The  single  gun  was  now 
turned  full  on  his  column.  It  was  worked  by  a  fine  old  havildar, 
who  was  evidently  prepared  to  die  at  his  post.  Nicholson,  famous 
of  old  for  his  feats  of  swordsmanship,  went  at  him,  sword  in  hand, 
and,  dealing  him  a  blow  slantwise  on  his  shoulder,  with  that  one 
stroke  cut  him  clean  in  two,  one  half  of  his  body  falling  on  one,  the 
other  on  the  other  side  of  his  sword.  '  Not  a  bad  sliver  that  !  '  he 
said  quietly  to  his  aide-de-camp,  Randall,  who  was  at  his  side,  and 
then  pursued  the  flying  Sepoys,  driving  them  into  the  river  and  de- 
stroying them  to  the  last  man.  Thus,  in  one  short  week  from  its 
outbreak,  the  Sealkote  Brigade  had  ceased  to  exist. 

Sir  John  Lawrence's  delight  at  this  exploit  of  his  new  Brigadier- 
General  was  great,  for  he  estimated  rightly  its  bearing  on  the  gen- 
eral issue  of  the  struggle.  Through  the  medium  of  his  Secretary 
he  expressed  himself  on  the  subject  thus  : — 

As  an  evidence  to  Government  of  what  can  be  clone  by  a  really  able 
officer  who  desires  to  overtake  his  enemy,  I  am  to  record  that  the  troops 
made  a  march  of  upwards  of  forty  miles  on  the  night  of  the  nth,  and 
advanced  and  defeated  the  insurgents  immediately  after  their  arrival. 
.  .  .  Thus  at  an  aggregate  loss  of  forty-six  soldiers,  only  twelve  of 
whom  lost  their  lives,  Brigadier-General  Nicholson  disposed  of  a  regi- 
ment of  Native  Infantry  and  a  wing  of  Regular  Cavalry,  thus  giving 
practical  evidence  of  what  can  be  accomplished  by  a  really  efficient 
commander.  .  .  .  The  importance  of  this  affair  is  very  considerable. 
The  effect  on  the  country  at  large  will  be  beneficial.  But  its  main  result 
consists  in  the  loss  which  has  l)een,  directly  or  indirectly,  inflicted  on  the 
general  cause  of  the  mutineers  in  Hindustan  as  well  as  in  the  Punjab. 
The  Sealkote  mutineers,  encouraged  by  the  success  of  those  at  Jullun- 
dur,  evidently  intended  to  sweep  across  the  country,  picking  up  on  their 
route  the  2nd  Irregular  Cavalry  at  Goordaspore,  with  whom  they  had 
an  understanding,  the  4th  Native  Infantry  at  Nurpore  and  Kangra,  and 
probably  many  of  tiie  disarmed  Sepoys  of  the  33rd,  35th,  and  54th  at 
Jullundur  and  Umritsur,  and  would  probably  have  reached  Delhi  with 
three  or  four  thousand  good  native  soldiers  to  the  infinite  encouratrement 


Il6  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

of  the  insurg-ents  in  that  city.  Whereas,  as  the  matter  now  stands,  fully 
a  thousand  mutineers  have  been  destroyed,  and  all  disarmed  soldiers  will 
be  awed  by  their  fate. 

It  was  always  John  Lawrence's  way  to  look  on  each  event  in  its 
remote  as  well  as  its  immediate  consequences  ;  as  part,  that  is,  of  a 
Avhole  ;  and,  in  that  spirit,  he  went  on  now  to  comment  on  the  con- 
trast which  the  doings  at  Sealkote  presented  to  those  at  JuUundur, 
Rohilkund,  and  Meerut. 

The  Injury  which  the  junction  of  the  Jullundur  and  Rohilkund  muti- 
neers with  the  insurgents  at  Delhi  has  caused  to  British  interests,  it  will 
be  difficult  to  over-estimate.  The  Chief  Commissioner  believes  that,  but 
for  their  arrival,  the  city  would  long  ago  have  been  in  our  possession. 
It  was  not  merely  the  addition  which  the  insurgents  gained  that  was  of 
such  importance,  though,  even  in  that  light,  it  was  of  great  value.  But 
the  almost  triumphal  advance  of  these  bodies  of  troops  showed  to  the 
insurgents  that  the  British  Government  was  nearly  powerless  over  wide 
and  important  parts  of  the  country.  The  moral  influence  of  such  a  cir- 
cumstance must  have  been  very  great,  and  that  such  was  the  effect  of 
our  mistakes,  must  be  evident  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  most 
resolute  and  powerful  attacks  on  our  troops  invariably  followed  the  ac- 
cession of  each  reinforcement  to  the  enemy. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  now  made  up  his  mind  that  no  Poorbea  regi- 
ment in  the  Punjab  should  be  allowed  to  retain  its  arms  longer  than 
was  absolutely  necessary.  The  4th  Native  Infantry  at  Kangra  and 
Nurpore  had  already  been  disarmed  by  Reynell  Taylor  ;  and  the 
loth  Light  Cavalry  at  Ferozepore  gave  up  their  arms  and  horses  at 
the  command  of  Brigadier  Innes.  There  had  been  no  definite  rea- 
son to  suspect  either  of  them,  but  the  outbreak  at  Sealkote  made  it 
necessary,  in  these  troublous  times,  to  take  away  the  means  to  do 
ill  deeds,  even  from  those  who  might  not  seem  disposed  to  use 
them.  And  now  John  Lawrence,  who  had  at  length  left  his  solitary 
station  at  Rawul  Pindi,  where  he  had  planned  and  done  so  much, 
sent  for  Nicholson  to  Lahore,  and,  to  his  infinite  delight,  gave  him 
the  long-looked-for  order  to  march  for  Delhi. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

ABANDONMENT  OF   PESHAWUR. 

June — August,  1857. 

The  letters  of  John  Lawrence  which  I  have  hitherto  quoted,  and 
the  actions  which  I  have  recorded,  are  all  of  them  based,  more  or 
less,  upon  the  supposition  that  Delhi  would  soon  fall.  And  that  it 
might  fall  the  sooner  and  with  more  overwhelming  effect  upon  the 
prospects  of  the  Mutiny  generally,  he  was  doing,  as  we  have  seen, 
all  that  man  could  do.  But  what  if  it  should  not  fall  ?  John  Law- 
rence would  not  have  been  the  statesman  that  he  was  ;  he  would 
not  have  governed  the  Punjab  as  he  did  govern  it,  had  he  shut  his 
eyes  to  the  other  and  only  too  possible  alternative  that  our  attack, 
when  at  last  it  was  delivered,  might  fail,  and  that  our  small  and 
hard-pressed  army  upon  the  Ridge  might  have  to  retreat,  if  indeed 
it  could  still  do  so,  towards  the  Punjab.  In  that  case  he  knew  well 
that  the  country  between  the  Jumna  and  the  Sutlej  would  rise 
against  us  ;  that  the  Regular  troops  who  had  hitherto  remained 
passive  would  throw  off  the  disguise  ;  that  their  example  would  be 
followed  by  the  Irregular  Cavalry,  and  that  again,  only  too  proba- 
bly, by  the  inhabitants  of  the  Punjab  generally.  There  was  a 
point,  he  knew  well,  beyond  which  the  loyalty  even  of  the  Sikhs 
could  not  be  strained.  He  knew  the  natives  of  India  far  too  inti- 
mately to  imagine  that,  govern  them  as  we  may,  we  can  ever  look 
for  more  from  them  than  a  passive  contentment  or  acquiescence  in 
our  rule,  the  rule  of  a  people  who  differ  from  themselves  in  habits, 
character,  language,  colour,  and  religion.  And  he  took  his  meas- 
ures accordingly.  In  public  he  always  held  cheerful  and  inspiriting 
language,  but  he  never  disguised  from  himself  nor  from  his  more 
trusted  subordinates  that  he  contemplated  also  the  possibility  of 
failure.  If  he  always  hoped  for  the  best,  he  was  always,  also,  pre- 
paring for  the  worst.  And  what  he  was  prepared  to  do,  if  the  worst 
came  to  the  worst,  he  communicated,  confidentially,  with  a  full 
sense  of  his  responsibility  and  with  perfect  coolness — the  coohiess 

117 


Il8     '  LIFE  OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

of  a  brave  man, — almost  at  the  beginning  of  the  struggle,  to  those 
whom  it  most  concerned  to  know  it. 

He  was  prepared,  if  matters  came  to  that  extremity,  to  ask  Dost 
Mohammed  to  occupy  Peshawur,  with  the  understanding  that,  if 
he  remained  true  to  us,  it  should  revert  to  him  when  the  struggle 
v.-as  over.  We  were  to  retire  to  Attock  and  hold  the  line  of  the 
Indus  in  force,  thus  setting  free  some  3,000  European  troops  from 
a  place  which,  during  three  months  at  least  of  the  year,  is  the 
white  man's  hospital,  and,  so  long  as  we  hold  it,  must  always,  it  is 
to  be  feared,  continue  to  be  the  white  man's  grave.  A  large  por- 
tion of  the  troops  thus  disengaged  from  Peshawur  would  be  sent  at 
once  to  Delhi,  and  would  make  the  early  termination  of  the  siege 
a  certainty  ;  while  the  gift  of  Peshawur  to  the  Afghans,  to  whom 
it  had  recently  belonged,  and  who  were  always  ardently  longing  for 
its  recovery,  would  do  more  he  thought  than  anything  else  to  secure 
their  permanent  friendship  and  their  active  alliance  in  case  of  an 
invasion  from  beyond. 

This  then  is  what  he  was  prepared  to  do  if  the  safety  of  the 
Empire  or,  what  in  his  judgment,  at  this  juncture,  was  the  same 
thing,  the  prosecution  of  the  siege  of  Delhi,  demanded  it.  That 
he  was  prepared  calmly  to  face  the  outcry  which  such  a  proposal 
would  create,  at  the  time,  among  his  heutenants  at  Peshawur,  and, 
afterwards,  among  the  shortsighted  and  uninstructed  throughout 
India  and  at  home,  is  not  the  least  striking  proof  of  his  moral 
courage.  It  shows  that  he  regarded  the  struggle  with  the  eye  of 
a  statesman  as  well  as  of  a  soldier,  that  he  embraced  its  imperial  as 
well  as  its  local  aspects. 

The  proposal  therefore,  in  itself,  seems  to  call  for  little  in  the 
way  of  defence  or  explanation  ;  and,  if  I  treat  of  it  in  more  detail 
than  may  appear  necessary,  I  do  so  for  three  reasons.  First,  be- 
cause, as  Sir  John  Lawrence's  biographer,  I  cannot  fail  to  see,  in 
the  correspondence  before  me,  how  large  a  part  of  his  most  anxious 
thoughts  the  question  occupied.  Secondly,  because,  as  I  have  said, 
his  treatment  of  it  seems  to  me  to  indicate  his  statesmanlike  insight 
no  less  than  his  moral  courage  ;  and  thirdly  and  principally,  be- 
cause owing  to  the  heat  of  party  spirit  which  has,  unfortunately,  of 
late  years  been  imported  into  Indian  questions,  there  have  not  been 
wanting  men  in  high  station  who,  in  ignorance  or  otherwise,  have 
endeavoured  to  make  capital  out  of  it  for  purposes  of  their  own, 
and  so  to  discredit  the  just  and  wise  frontier  policy  with  which 
Lord  Lawrence's  name  will  always  be  honourably  identified.  In  a 
debate  in  the  House  of  Lords  on  December  9,  1878,  on  the  Afghan 


i857  ABANDONMENT   OF    PESHAWUR.  II9 

war,  into  which  the  policy  of  the  Government  had  just  then  pre- 
cipitated us,  Lord  Cranbrook,  who  was  at  that  time  Secretary  of 
State  for  India,  used  the  following  words  :  *  Would  you  have  asked 
the  Ameer  to  let  you  send  a  friendly  mission  to  explain  what  the 
relations  between  him  and  you  ought  to  be,  or  would  you,  with  the 
retiring  tnodcsty  which  a  noble  lord  exhibited  on  a  former  occasion, 
have  wished  England  to  retire  behind  the  Indus  ? '  In  the  course 
of  a  weighty  speech  delivered  on  the  same  evening,  a  speech  every' 
word  of  which  might  have  been  written  to-day  as  a  description  of 
what  has  happened,  rather  than — as  what  it  was — a  solemn  and 
prophetic  forecast  of  what  would  happen,  and  which,  if  it  had  been 
listened  to,  might,  even  then,  have  saved  thousands  of  lives  and 
millions  of  money,  as  well  as  something  which  ought  to  be  more 
valuable  to  England  than  either,  Lord  Lawrence,  with  a  dignity 
which  must  have  made  one  man  at  least  among  his  hearers  feel 
somewhat  small,  remarked  that  he  was  quite  prepared  to  defend 
the  policy  proposed  by  him  in  1S57,  at  a  proper  time  and  place,  if 
challenged  to  do  so. 

The  challenge,  of  course,  was  not  forthcoming,  and  Lord  Law- 
rence considered  that  the  attempt  made  by  Lord  Cranbrook  to  cast 
a  slur  on  his  reputation  had  been  prompted  by  party  motives  only 
— as  indeed  it  had — and  that  it  was  altogether  unworthy  of  the 
speaker.  He  did,  however,  desire  that  the  attack  should  be  an- 
swered calmly  by  some  one  who  had  access  to  the  whole  of  his 
papers,  and  this,  not  so  much  with  any  view  of  re-establishing  his 
own  reputation,  which  neither  he  himself  nor  any  person  whose 
opinion  was  of  value,  could  consider  to  be  impaired  ;  as  of  ensuring 
that  a  full  and  truthful  account  should  be  given  to  the  world 
of  the  circumstances  which  influenced  him  in  his  proposal, 
under  certain  eventualities,  to  retire  from  Peshawur.  This  wish  he 
expressed  to  a  near  relative  and  friend  in  the  following  June.  But 
before  the  task  had  been  begun,  in  the  very  next  week,  all  England 
and  all  India  heard  with  a  thrill  of  sorrow,  which  the  events  of 
succeeding  years  have  certainly  not  tended  to  diminish,  that  Lord 
Lawrence  was  no  more. 

It  now  rests  with  me  to  decide  what  answer,  if  any,  shall  be  given 
to  Lord  Cranbrook's  taunt,  a  taunt  echoed  since  then,  in  the  heat 
of  party  conflict,  by  many  lesser  men.  The  wish  expressed  by 
Lord  Lawrence  to  Colonel  Randall  a  few  days  before  his  death 
seems  to  mc  to  settle  the  question,  and  to  make  it  a  sacred  duty  to 
set  forth  fully — and  as  far  as  possible  in  his  own  words — what  he 
did  or  did  not  propose  with  respect  to  Peshawur. 


120  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

The  difficulty  is  chiefly  one  of  selection.  If  I  had  room  to  quote 
the  whole  correspondence  there  would  be  little  to  explain  and  less 
to  defend,  as,  assuredly,  there  is  nothing  to  conceal.  Any  expla- 
nations or  connecting  links  which  may  seem  necessary  I  shall  make 
as  short  as  possible,  and,  for  the  rest,  shall  leave  Sir  John  Law- 
rence to  give  his  own  views  in  his  own  words. 

We  have  seen  at  how  early  a  period  in  the  history  of  the  Mutiny 
the  danger  of  Peshawur  and  the  urgent  remonstrances  of  his  friends 
there  had  obliged  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  recall  two  regiments  which 
he  had  already  despatched  towards  Delhi,  to  the  defence  of  the 
famous  valley.  He  did  what  he  was  bound  to  do  and  did  it  un- 
grudgingly. But  looking  forward  to  the  future,  and  observing  how 
the  mutineers  at  Delhi  were  being  daily  reinforced,  he  took  occa- 
sion, on  June  9,  to  inform  his  Peshawur  friends  that,  if  it  came  to  be 
a  question  of  starving  the  siege  of  Delhi  in  order  that  more  troops 
might  be  massed  upon  the  frontier,  he  would  be  prepared  to  draw 
in  that  frontier. 

Rawul  Pindi :  June  9,  1857. 

My  dear  Edwarcles,  ...  I  have  done  all  I  could  to  urge  vigorous 
and  prompt  action  at  Delhi,  and  only  stopped  when  I  perceived  that  I 
mijrht  do  more  harm  than  good.  Delay  is  only  a  less  misfortune  than  a 
repulse.  1  have  no  confidence  in  the  Headquarter  folks,  and  unless  we 
are  specially  aided  from  the  Almighty,  any  disaster  may  occur.     .    .     . 

If  Delhi  does  not  fall  at  once,  or  if  any  disaster  occur  there,  all  the 
Regular  Army,  and  probably  all  the  Irregular  Cavalry,  will  fall  away. 
Last  night  (at  JuUundur)  the  two  native  corps  of  Infantry,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  one  hundred  and  twenty  men,  and  nearly  all  the  6th  Cavalry 
mutinied.  They  were  joined  at  Phillour  by  the  3rd  Native  Infantry. 
The  dawk  this  morning  brought  the  rumour  tliat  the  15th  and  30th  had 
mutinied  at  Nusserabad,  and  the  Brigade  at  Bareilly,  and  so  the  game 
goes  on.     Day  after  da^,  more  and  more  regiments  fall  away. 

/  think  we  must  look  ahead  and  consider  what  should  be  done,  in 
the  evejtt  of  disaster  at  Delhi.  My  decided  opinion  is  that  in  that  case 
we  must  concentrate.  All  our  safety  depends  on  this.  If  we  attempt  to 
hold  the  whole  country,  we  shall  be  cut  up  in  detail.  The  important 
points  in  the  Punjab  are  Peshawur,  Mooltan,  and  Lahore,  including 
Umritsur.  But  I  do  not  think  that  we  can  hold  Peshawur  and  the  other 
places  also,  in  the  event  of  disaster.  We  could  easily  retire  from  Pe- 
shawur early  in  the  day.  But  at  the  eleventh  hour  it  would  be  difficult, 
perhaps  impossible.  Depend  on  it,  that  if  this  disaffection  goes  on  it 
will  spread  to  the  Irregulars  even  of  the  Punjab  force.  They  will  see 
that  our  European  force  is  small  and  scattered  over  the  country.  The 
Ameer  will  also  come  down  and  endeavour  to  gain  Peshawur. 

I  would  make  a  merit  of  our  necessities.  I  would  invite  him  down, 
ask  him  to  take  care  of  Peshawur,  and  promise  that  Government  should 


i857  ABANDONMENT   OF   PESHAWUR.  121 

give  it  to  him  if  he  remained  true  to  us.  If  anything  would  make  him 
true,  this  would.  He  would  surely  sooner  hold  Peshawur  as  our  friend 
than  as  our  enemy.  Peshawur  would  accomplish  his  heart's  desire,  and 
would  do  more  to  make  the  Afghans  friendly  to  us  than  anything  else 
which  we  could  do.  We  could  then  hold  Attock  in  strength,  and  have 
the  Indus  for  our  barrier.  It  is  a  formidable  one  if  rightly  used.  We 
would  bring  the  greater  part  of  our  European  regiments  down  here  and 
organise  our  arrangements. 

Peshawur  is  only  useful  to  us  in  the  event  of  an  invasion.  In  every 
other  respect  it  is  a  source  of  weakness  and  expense.  By  giving  it  up 
we  free  ourselves  from  many  complications,  and,  in  the  event  of  an  in- 
vasion, we  might  still,  if  necessary,  cross  the  river  for  a  time.  It  will  be 
said,  if  we  give  up  Peshawur,  we  must  give  up  Kohat  and  the  Derajat, 
I  would  certainly  give  up  Kohat  with  Peshawur.  The  Derajat  I  would 
keep,  at  any  rate  for  the  present.  But  I  confess  I  am  prepared  to  give 
it  all  up  if  necessary.  It  seems  to  me  madness  to  endeavour  to  keep  the 
outskirts  of  our  dominions,  when  it  will  be  a  desperate  struggle  to  retain 
the  latter  at  all.  If  things  go  on  as  they  are  now  doing,  it  must  come 
to  a  life  and  death  struggle.  With  six  or  seven  thousand  Europeans  in 
good  health  and  spirits,  and  plenty  of  ammunition  and  guns,  the  proba- 
bility is  that  we  can  hold  our  own  and  save  our  magazines.  Only  reflect 
what  will  be  the  condition  of  our  Europeans  at  Peshawur  in  August  and 
September,  worn  down  by  the  climate  and  dispirited  by  our  constant 
misfortunes.  They  may  even  fall  a  prey  to  the  Irregular  force  we  are 
now  raising.  But  at  Rawul  Pindi  with  a  good  climate  and  a  friendly 
population  we  should  be  prepared  to  advance,  in  any  direction,  directly 
the  cold  weather  sets  in,  and,  by  that  time,  twenty  thousand  Europeans 
will  have  arrived  from  England. 

It  will  be  urged  that  a  retrograde  move  will  injure  our  prestige.  This 
seems  to  me  a  weak  argument.  There  is  much  in  prestige  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point.  Beyond  that  it  is  a  feeble  reed  on  which  to  lean.  European 
troops  advancing  in  good  order  to  an  attack,  well  handled  and  well  in 
hand,  are  greatly  aided  by  the  prestige  which  altends  them.  But  let 
them  be  mismanaged  and  receive  a  check,  where  is  then  their  prestige  ? 
The  24th  Queen's  at  Chillianwalla  marched  to  the  attack  1,150  strong 
with  the  assurance  of  victory.  When  they  fell  back  after  their  repulse 
a  few  Sikh  horsemen  followed  them  and  cut  up  many  of  them. 

Idonot  think  we  could  hold  Peshawur  if  we  lose  thecountrycis-Indus  and 
are  cooped  up  in  the  fort  at  Lahore.  But  even  if  we  did,  to  what  purpose  ? 
We  could  not  hope  to  maintain  ourselves  there  until  India  was  reconquered. 

Pray  think  of  what  I  have  said,  and  consult  Brigadiers  S.  Cotton  and 
Nicholson,  but  nobody  else.  No  man  will  retrace  his  steps  more  un- 
willingly than  myself.  But  there  is  a  point  when  to  hold  on  savours 
more  of  obstinacy  than  of  wisdom. 

On  the  following  day  he  sent  a  copy  of  this  letter  to  Lord  Can- 
ning, and  commented  on  it  as  follows  : — 


122  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

My  Lord,  ...  I  trust  that  your  Lordship  has  written  urgently  to 
England  for  reinforcements  ;  20,000  infantry  will  not  be  a  man  too  many, 
perhaps  not  enough.  We  are  doing  our  best  to  maintain  our  position. 
As  the  Regulars  mutiny  and  fall  away  we  raise  Irregular  corps.  I  shall 
do  my  best  in  the  confidence  of  your  support. 

The  three  great  points  in  the  Punjab  to  hold  are,  Peshawur,  Lahore 
(including  Umritsur),  and  Mooltan.  If  we  can  hold  these  firmly  we  re- 
tain our  occupation  of  the  Punjab.  But  if  any  disaster  occur  at  Delhi, 
or  even  if  much  delay  occurs,  and  should  the  Hindustani  cavalry  de- 
sert us,  I  myself  do  not  think  that,  under  these  circumstances,  we  can 
do  so. 

It  appears  to  me  that  by  holding  on  too  long  on  all,  we  may  lose  all. 
Like  mariners  at  sea  in  a  tempest,  I  would  sacrifice  a  portion  to  save  the 
rest.  I  enclose  copy  of  a  letter  which  I  sent  to  Colonel  Edwardes  yes- 
terday regarding  Peshawur.  I  rather  think  he  will  be  for  maintaining 
ourselves  there.  I  should  be  glad  if  your  lordship  could  send  me  a  tele- 
graphic message  through  Lord  Elphinstone  expressive  of  your  wishes. 
A  line  will  suffice.  '  Hold  on  to  Peshawur  to  the  last,'  or  'You  may  act 
as  may  appear  expedient  in  regard  to  Peshawur,'  will  explain  your 
views. 

I  would  not  give  up  Peshawur  so  long  as  I  saw  a  prospect  of  success. 
But  I  cannot  help  foreseeing  that  in  August  and  September  the  larger 
portion  of  the  Europeans  will  be  prostrated  by  sickness.  They  might 
then  be  destroyed  without  much  difficulty.  But,  even  should  this  not 
happen,  they  will  be  of  little  use  for  months.  There  are  some  3,500 
Europeans  there,  including  Artillery,  a  body  who,  if  in  good  health  and 
well  commanded,  would  beat  20,000  native  troops.  But  these  same 
soldiers  worn  down  by  sickness,  and  dispirited  by  successive  combats 
with  large  bodies  of  insurgents  who  will  not  close,  but  will  buzz  around 
them,  might  be  so  weakened  that  even  if  the  major  part  crossed  the 
Indus,  they  would  prove  of  little  value  in  an  impending  struggle. 

I  myself  see  no  value  in  Peshawur  or  Kohat  except  as  furnishing  a 
good  base  of  operations  in  the  event  of  a  general  invasion  from  the  west, 
and  as  a  good  practical  school  for  our  officers.  But  many  good  soldiers 
affirm  that  the  Indus  would  prove  a  better  boundary.  One  great  argu- 
ment in  favour  of  surrendering  Peshawur  is  that  it  would  do  more  to 
reconcile  the  Afghans  to  us,  to  unite  their  interests  with  ours,  than  any- 
thing else  which  we  could  do.  So  long  as  we  hold  Peshawur,  it  is  vain 
to  expect  that  the  Afghans,  in  the  event  of  a  great  invasion,  will  be  true 
to  us.  Officers  will  urge  that  a  retirement  from  Peshawur  must  prove 
disastrous.  I  cannot  see  this.  An  army  unbeaten  can  retire  with  suc- 
cess, just  as  it  may  advance  with  success.  Much  will  depend  on  the 
commander,  and,  fortunately,  there  is  a  good  one  there. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  the  calamities  which  may  follow  a  disaster  at 
Delhi.  Native  accounts,  even  now,  describe  the  upper  portion  of  the 
Gangetic  Doab  as  perfectly  disorganised,  bands  of  freebooters  roaming 
about  without  fear.     From  Delhi  due  west  to  the  frontier  of  Bahawul- 


i857  ABANDONMENT   OF    PESHAWUR.  123 

pore  and  Bickaneer,  the  condition  of  the  country  is  even  worse.  Even 
if  troops  were  sent  out  from  England  the  week  after  the  news  of  the  Delhi 
massacre  arrived  they  cannot  be  in  Calcutta,  Bombay,  and  Kurrachi  be- 
fore October,  and  up  the  country  before  December.  What  may  not  be 
our  condition  by  that  time  ? 

Your  Lordship  may  depend  on  my  doing  all  in  my  power  to  stem  the 
tide  and  maintain  our  supremacy.  I  think  it  would  be  useful  if  you  could 
delegate  to  me  your  authority  to  act  on  your  behalf  in  the  Punjab  during 
this  crisis. 

The  Peshawar  authorities  were  not  likely  to  acquiesce  in  their 
chief's  view  of  the  comparative  importance  of  Peshawur  and  of 
Delhi.  They  would  hardly  have  been  mortal  if  they  had  done  so. 
They  immediately  held  a  Council  at  which  Edwardes,  Nicholson 
and  Cotton  were  present  ;  and  Edwardes,  acting  as  their  mouth- 
piece, wrote  in  forcible  terms  protesting  against  the  bare  supposi- 
tion. 

June  II. 

My  dear  John, — We  are  unanimously  of  opinion  that  with  God's  help 
we  can  and  will  hold  Peshawur,  let  the  worst  come  to  the  worst,  and 
that  it  would  be  a  fatal  policy  to  abandon  it  and  to  retire  across  the 
Indus.  It  is  the  anchor  of  the  Punjab,  and  if  you  take  it  up  the  whole 
ship  will  drift  to  sea.  For  keeping  the  mastery  of  the  Punjab  there  are 
only  two  obligatory  points — the  Peshawur  Valley  and  the  Manjha.  All 
the  rest  are  mere  dependencies.  .  .  .  We  think  then  that  all  the  Euro- 
pean force  should  be  concentrated  at  Peshawur  and  in  the  Manjha.  .  .  . 
Holding  these  two  points  you  will  hold  the  whole  Punjab.  .  .  .  Euro- 
peans cannot  retreat.  Without  rum,  without  beef,  without  success,  they 
would  soon  be  without  hope,  without  organisation.  Cabul  would  come 
again.  ...  As  a  general  remark  I  believe  when  it  comes  to  our  ceding 
territory  we  abandon  our  position  in  India  and  shall  soon  be  in  the 
sea.  We  hope  earnestly  that  you  will  stand  or  fall  at  Peshawur. 
It  must  be  done  somewhere.  Let  us  do  it  in  the  front,  giving  up 
nothing. 

Unanswerable,  no  doubt,  and  vigorous  and  manly  all  of  this 
was  ;  but  I  observe  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  has  written  across  the 
letter  from  which  I  have  given  a  few  extracts,  the  pregnant  remark 
— '  The  plan  here  sketched  out  would  have  required  us  to  retain  all 
the  European  troops  in  the  Punjab.'  And  was  it  not  equally  un- 
answerable, did  it  not  show  equal  manliness  and  vigour,  and  did  it 
not  show  a  much  wider  grasp  of  all  the  conditions  of  the  problem 
to  say,  as  John  Lawrence  did,  there  is  one  thing  which  I  consider 
would  be  even  more  fatal  tlian  the  abandonment  of  Peshawur,  and 
that  is  the  abandonment  of  the  siege  of  Delhi  ?     We  can  doubtless. 


124  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

as  you  say,  ride  out  the  storm  in  the  Punjab,  if  we  determine  to 
keep  every  European  and  every  native  soldier  who  is  now  within 
it  around  us,  but  what  of  India  ?  Peshawur  is  not  India,  though 
it  is  natural  that  you  should  now  write  as  if  it  were.  The  Punjab 
is  not  India,  though  it  would  be  even  more  natural  if  I,  as  its 
chief  ruler,  were  to  act  as  if  it  were.  India  lies  beyond  and  above 
them  both,  and  I  will  send  the  last  available  European  and  the  last 
available  native  levies  to  the  front,  and  get  on  without  them  as  I 
best  can,  rather  than  allow  the  historic  capital  of  India,  the  heart 
of  India,  to  remain  in  the  hands  of  our  enemies,  or  to  drive  our 
army  in  disaster  from  before  its  walls. 

Such  was  the  gist  of  all  John  Lawrence's  letters  on  this  subject, 
and  such  the  policy  on  which  he  was  prepared  to  act  so  long  as 
the  danger  which  he  contemplated  was  either  probable  or  possible. 
But  meanwhile  he  replied  with  characteristic  modesty  and  frankness 
to  some  of  Edwardes'  arguments. 

You  may  all  be  right  about  Kohat  and  Peshawur,  and  I  do  not  feel 
that  I  am  likely  to  be  a  good  judge.  But  I  confess  that  I  do  not  think 
with  you  that  we  could  hold  these  places  if  the  disaffectiofi  spreads. 
We  must  hold  Mooltan.  It  is  our  only  means  of  communication  with 
the  seaboard  and  with  Bombay.  There  is  no  one  who  could  hold  it  for 
us.  Bahawulpore  is  already  wavering  in  its  fidelity,  and  will  not  con- 
tinue true  if  we  are  pressed.  ...  If  we  give  up  all  the  country  but 
Peshawur  and  the  Manjha  we  shall  starve.  We  shall  get  no  revenue 
from  the  country,  or  supplies  of  cash  from  Bombay.  The  two  bodies  of 
troops,  one  at  Peshawur  and  one  at  Lahore,  will  be  isolated.  With  the 
trans-Indus  force  transferred  to  this  side  of  the  river  we  could  hold  the 
country,  collect  the  revenue,  keep  open  our  communications,  and  give 
the  Europeans  all  they  require.  I  do  not  think  that  the  Ameer  would 
follow  us  across  the  Indus.  Even  had  he  the  will  he  would  not  have 
the  povver.  The  difference  between  the  trans-Indus  Mohammedan  and 
his  co-religionist  on  this  side  is  the  difference  between  a  demon  and  a 
human  being  who  believes  in  a  bad  religion.  The  one  race  are  the  de- 
scendants of  the  conquering  hordes,  the  other  of  the  converted  Hindus. 
You  will  more  easily  hold  a  thousand  square  miles  on  this  side  of  the 
Indus  than  a  hundred  on  that.  .  .  .  But  enough  of  this.  I  hope  that  no 
necessity  will  arise. 

Meanwhile  as  the  plot  thickened,  as  Delhi  did  not  fall  or  give 
any  sign  of  falling,  and  as  the  Chief  Commissioner  went  on  drain- 
ing his  province  of  its  men  and  of  its  materials  for  war,  the  line  of 
argument  taken  up  by  Edwardes,  and  those  for  whom  he  spoke, 
became  more  urgent  and  alarmist,  as  assuredly  it  was  more  short- 
sighted and  provincial. 


i857  ABANDONMENT    OF    PESHAWUR.  125 

We  are  all  of  opinion  (he  says  on  the  26th  of  June)  that  you  must  not 
go  on  throwing  away  your  resources  in  detail  by  meeting  General  Reed's 
demands  for  reinforcements.  Delhi  is  not  India,  and  if  General  Reed 
cannot  take  it  with  eight  thousand  men,  he  will  not  take  it  with  nine 
thousand  or  ten  thousand.  However  important  a  point,  it  is  only  a  point, 
and  enough  has  been  done  for  it.  .  .  .  Make  a  stand  !  Anchor,  Hardy, 
anchor  !  Tell  General  Reed  he  can  have  no  more  men  from  here,  and 
must  either  get  into  Delhi  with  the  men  he  has  got,  or  get  reinforcements 
from  below,  or  abandon  the  siege  and  fall  back  on  the  Sutlej.  Don't 
try  too  much.  We  are  outnumbered.  Stick  to  what  we  can  do.  Let  us 
hold  the  Punjab  coute  que  coute,  and  not  give  up  one  European  neces- 
sary for  that  duty.  .  .  .  Don't  yield  an  inch  of  frontier  ;  gather  up  your 
forces  and  restrict  yourself  to  the  defence  .of  the  Punjab.  You  cannot 
spare  more  Europeans  from  the  Punjab.  Make  sure  of  one  practicable 
policy.  If  General  Reed  with  all  the  men  you  have  sent  him  cannot  take 
Delhi,  let  Delhi  go.  Decide  on  it  at  once  and  make  the  Punjab  snug 
before  the  rains.  Don't  let  yourself  be  sucked  to  death  by  inches  in  the 
way  Reed  is  doing.  He  has  his  difficulties.  We  have  ours.  You  have 
made  vast  efforts  for  him,  and  no  one,  hereafter,  considering  these  move- 
ments, can  blame  you  for  now  securing  your  own  province.  Not  that  I 
would  say  secure  your  own  province  if  the  Empire  required  its  sacrifice. 
We  could  sacrifice  any  other  province  without  a  pang  or  a  doubt,  but  the 
Empire's  reconquest  depends  on  the  Punjab.  .  ,  ,  My  own  belief  is  that, 
on  the  reinforcements  now  being  sent  reaching  General  Reed,  Delhi  will 
be  stormed  successfully.  If  not,  another  thousand  Europeans  will  not 
turn  the  scale— while  their  removal  will  endanger  the  Punjab.  Pray 
take  your  own  line.  It  is  not  selfish.  It  is  the  good  of  the  Empire. 
Don't  get  engulfed  in  Delhi. 

And  a  few  days  later,  June  30,  he  writes  again  : — 

You  have  indeed  denuded  the  Punjab  to  an  anxious  extent  to  help 
General  Reed,  and  my  earnest  advice  to  you  is  to  send  not  a  man  more. 
Nor  should  this  force,  the  Peshawur  garrison,  be  any  further  drawn  on. 
It  is  true  we  are  strong  now,  and  it  may  look  selfish  to  keep  the  troops. 
But  you  need  to  be  strong  somewhere  when  all  is  generally  so  weak. 
And  the  frontier  must  be  strong. 

What  must  have  been  the  result,  the  inevitable  result,  had  John 
Lawrence  yielded*  to  these  reiterated,  these  egregiously  shortsighted, 
appeals  to  him  not  to  send  a  man  more  to  Delhi  ?  What  but  the 
certain  destruction  of  our  force  before  that  place  ?  An  assault  had 
been  given  up  by  the  military  authorities  as  hopeless  unless  or  until 
large  reinforcements  should  arrive  from   the   Punjab.     A  regular 

'There  were  no  reinforcements  to  be  had  'from  below' — i.e.  from  the 
North-West  Provinces.     They  had  too  much  to  do  to  hold  their  own. 


126  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

siege  was  obviously  impossible.  The  enemy  were  receiving  weekly 
or  daily  reinforcements,  and  had  at  their  disposal  an  unlimited 
amount  of  all  the  material  of  war.  The  direct  and  practical  answer 
which  John  Lawrence  gave  to  this  and  every  other  appeal  of  the 
kind  may  perhaps  best  be  shown  by  an  extract  from  an  earlier  letter 
of  June  17  to  Harvey  Greathed,  who  had  written  from  before 
Delhi  to  tell  him  of  the  unexpected  numbers  of  the  enemy,  and  of 
the  excellence  of  their  artillery  practice. 

We  are  sending  you  down  every  soldier  we  can  spare.     I  calculate 
that  by  July  i  you  ought  to  have  3,250  men  from  us.     Thus — 


7  companies  of  Her  Majesty's  8th,  full 

5  "  "  "       6ist,    " 

European  Artillerymen 

1st  Punjab  Rifles  (Coke's)   . 

4th  Sikhs        "      (Rothney's)      . 

Punjab  Cavalry  ..... 


.  600 

•  450 

.  200 

.  800 

.  800 

.  400 

3.250 

In  fifteen  days  afterwards  we  could  send  the  ist  Punjab  Cavalry,  now  on 
its  way  from  Mooltan — say  500  sabres — and,  probably  twenty  days  after 
this,  the  2nd  Punjab  Rifles,  now  at  Mooltan.  The  latter  cannot  move 
until  the  Beluch  Battalion  arrives  from  Sukkur,  for  it  has  to  watch  the 
native  corps  whom  we  have  just  disarmed.  Even  to  do  thus  much  we 
have  had  to  weaken  ourselves  a  good  deal.  We  have  still  thirteen  regi- 
ments of  armed  native  infantry  to  watch,  and  a  frontier  of  eight  hundred 
miles  to  guard.  By-the-bye,  we  have  the  Kumaon  Battalion  also  avail- 
able, and  I  purpose  sending  them  down.  They  do  not  muster  above 
four  hundred  and  fifty  men.  I  had  cause  to  suspect  them  in  the  first 
instance,  and  put  them  in  a  corner  where  they  could  not  well  do  harm. 
But  since  then  I  have  reason  to  believe  them  staunch,  and  will  send 
them  down.  They  are  most  anxious  to  emulate  the  good  conduct  of 
the  Ghoorka  corps  now  with  the  army. 

What  wonder  that  the  force  before  Delhi  felt  that  in  the  person 
of  the  man  who  could  write  thus  and  promise  thus  and  perform 
thus,  they  had  a  base  of  operations,  an  arsenal,  a  commissariat,  a 
very  tower  of  strength,  which,  come  what  might,  would  not  fail 
them  ?  And  he  did  not  fail  them.  No  sooner  was  this  large  body 
of  reinforcements  on  their  way  to  Delhi  than  a  demand  came  from 
General  Reed  for  the  Movable  Column  itself.  This  demand  John 
Lawrence  could  not  grant  as  yet.  He  entirely  agreed  with 
Edwardes  that  he  must  retain  his  hold  on  the  Punjab,  even  in 
preference   to  taking  Delhi.      The  difference  between  them  was 


i857  ABANDONMENT   OF   PESHAWUR.  12/ 

chiefly  as  to  the  frontier — whether,  if  matters  came  to  extremities, 
the  3,000  Europeans  and  the  large  body  of  native  troops  at  Peshawur 
would  be  more  useful  locked  up  there,  or  in  preserving  the  peace 
throughout  the  Punjab  and  pushing  the  siege  of  Delhi.  On  the 
presence  of  the  Movable  Column  in  the  Punjab  at  that  moment 
depended,  he  knew  well,  not  only  the  general  protection  of  the 
country,  but  the  overawing  of  some  six  or  seven  Poorbea  regiments 
which  he  had  not  yet  found  it  advisable  or  possible  to  deprive  of 
their  arms  When  once  they  had  been  disarmed  he  would  send  the 
Movable  Column,  with  Nicholson  at  its  head,  down  to  Delhi  also. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  had  conversed  much  with  Nicholson  on  the 
Peshawur  question  as  he  passed  through  Rawul  Pindi  to  take  the 
command  of  the  column.  But  the  vehement  expostulations  of  his 
famous  *  Warden  of  the  Marches '  had  proved  as  powerless  to  turn 
him  from  his  purpose,  as  were  the  more  rhetorical  letters  of  the 
Commissioner  of  Peshawur. 

I  had  a  long  talk  (he  says  on  June  18)  with  Nicholson,  and  twice  heard 
all  that  he  had  to  say  as  to  the  policy  of  maintaining  ourselves  at  Pe- 
shawur. I  have  weighed  well  what  he  and  you  have  said,  but  f  cannot 
concur  in  it.  I  am  persuaded  that,  in  the  event  of  a  great  disaster,  it 
would  be  our  best  policy  to  abandon  Peshawur  and  Kohat.  I  am  con- 
vinced that  we  should  concentrate  under  those  circumstances.  With 
Peshawur  in  our  hands  and  all  the  rest  of  the  country  in  a  flame,  the 
force  at  Peshawur  would  be  in  the  air,  as  it  were.  There,  that  force  is 
locked  up.  On  this  side  of  the  Indus,  a  third  of  it  would  hold  the  country 
and  give  the  remainder  for  employment  down  below. 

I  believe  that  the  Sikhs  did  hold  other  places  besides  Lahore  and 
Peshawur.  They  held,  for  instance,  Mooltan  and  the  Kohistan  of  Kangra 
and  Huzara  in  strength.  But  I  can  see  no  analogy  in  what  they  did  or 
should  have  done  and  in  what  should  be  our  policy.  We  know  that  this 
Doab  in  nowise  depends  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Indus.  The  races  are 
different,  their  political  and  social  condition  has  long  been  dissimilar. 
The  Sikhs  held  these  tracts  for  sixty  years  before  they  crossed  the  Indus. 
Peshawur  was  always  a  source  of  weakness  and  danger  to  them.  But 
for  his  vanity,  Runjeet  Singh  would  have  given  it  up.  Burnes  in  1838 
points  this  out. 

Peshawur  and  Kohat,  between  them,  cost  us  half  a  million  of  money 
annually.  Should  we  weather  this  storm  the  main  difficulty  to  solve 
will  be  how  to  meet  the  cost  of  the  new  system  which  will  be  necessary. 
We  have  already  from  one  to  two  millions  annually  on  the  wrong  side 
in  finance.  I  do  not  deny  the  value  of  Peshawur,  but  I  think  it  too 
expensive  and  too  dangerous  an  appendage  to  maintain  with  advantage. 
Our  system  will  not  allow  us  to  hold  such  tracts  as  Peshawur  and  Kohat 
with  thorough  security.     The  biggest  ass,  the  greatest  fool  in  the  Bengal 


128  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENXE.  1857 

army  may  any  day  be  in  command.  However,  I  will  not  bother  you 
more.  I  pray  God  it  may  not  come  to  this.  As  the  enemy  are  so  strong, 
the  more  sallies  they  make  the  better  for  us. 

But  Edwardes  was  as  resolute  and  unchanging  as  his  Chief, 
and  on  the  22nd  John  Lawrence  wrote  again  developing  his  views 
on  the  situation, 

I  do  not  think  that  you  give  due  weight  to  my  arguments  regarding 
the  frontier,  nor  sufficiently  consider  all  the  difficulties  of  our  occupation 
of  the  Trans-Indus  lands.  I  will,  however,  after  this  say  no  more  on  the 
subject.  I  see  several  advantages  in  the  possession  of  the  Trans-Indus 
districts,  and  at  one  time,  felt  convinced  that  we  were  right  in  taking  them. 
It  was  the  advice  I  gave  Lord  Dalhousie  previous  to  annexation  when  he 
consulted  me  on  the  subject.  But  time  and  experience  have  led  me  to 
alter  my  views.  I  consider  the  expense  very  great.  It  costs  annually 
sums  which  we  can  ill  spare.  The  expense  is  yearly  increasing.  The 
occupation  is  difficult  and  precarious.  Any  disaster  there  is  a  calamity 
difficult  to  remedy.  The  climate  is  insalubrious.  The  warfare  unsuited 
to  our  genius  and  habits.'  I  would  guarantee  to  hold  the  line  of  the 
Indus  with  one-half  of  the  troops  which  the  outer  range  requires. 

Anc]|then  to  come  to  our  present  position.  Here  we  are  with  three 
European  regiments,  a  large  Artillery,  and  some  of  our  best  native 
troops  locked  up  across  the  Indus  ;  troops  which  if  at  Delhi  would  decide 
the  contest  in  a  week.  What  have  we  got  for  all  the  rest  of  the  Punjab  ? 
We  have  barely  2,000  Europeans — I  doubt  if  we  have  so  many — holding 
the  forts  of  Phillour,  Govindghur,  Ferozepore,  and  Mooltan,  We  have 
not  a  man  more  with  a  white  face  whom  we  can  spare.  We  cannot 
concentrate  more  than  we  have  now  done,  except  by  giving  up  Rawul 
Pindi  and  eventually  Peshawur.  Should  the  Sikhs  rise,  our  position,  on 
this  side  tiie  Indus,  will  be  well  nigh  desperate.  With  the  Peshawur 
force  on  this  side,  we  should  be  irresistibly  strong.  There  was  no  one 
thing  which  tended  so  much  to  the  ruin  of  Napoleon  in  iSi4as  the  tenac- 
ity with  which,  after  the  disaster  of  Leipsic,  he  clung  to  the  line  of  the 
Elbe  instead  of  falling  back  at  once  to  that  of  the  Rhine.  He  thus  com- 
promised all  his  garrisons  beyond  the  Elbe,  and  when  he  was  beaten  in 
the  field  these  gradually  had  to  surrender.  But  these  troops  would  have 
given  him  the  victory  had  they  been  at' his  side  at  Bautzen  and  the  other 
conflicts  which  followed  Leipsic.     But  enough  of  this. 

It  was  towards  the  close  of  June  and  at  the  beginning  of  July 
that  the  prospects  in  the  Punjab  were  at  their  worst.  There  were 
louder  and  ever  louder  calls  from  Delhi  for  reinforcements.  The 
difficulty  of  meeting  them  was  growing  greater,  and  the  protests  of 
Edwardes  and  the  Peshawur  chiefs  against  the  policy  of  draining 
the  Punjab  were  becoming  more  urgent  and  imperative.  It  had 
been  hoped  by  the  authorities  of  Delhi,  no  less  than  by  Edwardes 


l857  ABANDONMENT   OF    PESHAWUR.  1 29 

and  by  Lawrence,  that  when  the  last  of  the  3,200  fresh  troops 
should  have  arrived  upon  the  ridge  by  the  beginning  of  July,  the 
long  postponed  attack  would  at  last  be  made.  But  this  hope  was 
already  vanishing  into  air.  *  I  estimate,'  says  John  Lawrence  to 
Edwardes  on  June  29,  '  that  when  all  our  reinforcements  arrive  we 
shall  have  between  seven  and  eight  thousand  men  before  Delhi.  But 
I  am  sorry  to  say  they  appear  quite  unequal  to  taking  the  place. 
They  cannot  indeed  secure  their  communications  in  the  rear.' 

No  message  had  as  yet  arrived  from  Lord  Canning  as  to  what 
should  be  done  if  matters  came  to  an  extremity,  and  yet  everything 
seemed  to  show  that  the  time  was  drawing  near  when  the  question 
would  be  one,  not  of  contingent  or  hypothetical,  but  of  immediate 
and  practical  politics  ;  when  the  fateful  choice  would  have  to  be 
made  whether  the  Chief  Commissioner  should  order  our  forces  to 
withdraw  from  Peshawur  or  should  declare  that  he  had  not  another 
man  to  send  to  Delhi.  His  own  mind  was  quite  made  up.  '  Delhi 
is  the  critical  point,  and  I  feel  I  am  bound  to  send  every  one  that 
I  can  muster  down.'  The  Peshawur  authorities  were  equally  clear 
in  their  view,  for  it  was  at  this  time  that  they  sent  the  joint  remon- 
strance from  which  I  have  quoted  such  copious  extracts.  The 
European  Infantry  now  in  the  Punjab  amounted  only  to  5,600 
men.  Of  these  nearly  half  were  in  the  Peshawur  valley.  The 
small  remainder  had,  in  conjunction  with  the  Irregulars,  to  garrison 
the  Capital,  to  hold  the  forts  of  Mooltan  and  Govindghur,  the 
arsenals  of  Phillour  and  Ferozepore,  the  cantonments  of  Rawul 
Pindi  and  Jullundur,  and  the  passage  of  the  Indus  at  Attock. 
They  had  to  contribute  eight  hundred  of  their  number  to  the 
Movable  Column,  to  keep  some  six  or  seven  Poorbea  regiments, 
which  still  retained  their  arms,  from  rising,  and  to  prevent  those 
which  had  already  been  disarmed  from  taking  themselves  off  to 
Delhi.  An  insurrection,  therefore,  might  at  any  time  take  place, 
and  John  Lawrence  made  all  the  preparations  by  which  he  might 
utilise  his  small  force  to  the  utmost,  might  secure  all  the  most  im- 
portant points,  might  disarm  the  Poorbea  regiments,  and  now,  even 
now,  send  off  one  more  European  regiment  to  Delhi  ! 

But  his  letters  show  his  extreme  anxiety. 

If  the  China  reinforcements  (he  says  on  June  26),  arrive  soon,  we  may 
still  do  well,  but  otherwise  I  do  not  myself  anticipate  we  shall  weather 
the  storm,  more  especially  if  you  all  remain  across  the  Indus. 

To  abandon  Peshawur  (he  says  to  Georj^e  Barnes,  to  whom,  as  well  as 
to  Bartle  Frere  and  Neville  Chamberlain,  he  communicated  his  thoughts 
on  the  subject),  would  set  free  3,000  Europeans,  24  guns,  and  four  beau- 

VOL.  II. — 9 


I30  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

tiful  corps  of  Punjab  troops.  This  would  be  a  desperate  measure.  But 
anything  is  better  than  not  taking  Delhi.  If  we  cannot  take  the  place,  we 
cannot  retreat.  ...  Of  course  it  (the  abandonment  of  Peshawur)  would 
be  a  sign  of  weakness.  But  are  we  not  weak?  It  is  mere  temerity 
to  say  we  are  not  so.  On  this  side  the  Indus  we  would  defy  all  the  hill 
tribes,  Afghans,  and  the  like,  and  consolidate  our  power,  and  reorganise 
our  army.  By  clinging  to  our  Trans-Indus  possessions  we  may  ruin 
ourselves  past  redemption. 

And  again  he  writes  to  Edwardes  on  June  30  : 

What  I  have  said  on  this  subject  is  founded  on  much  thought  and  full 
conviction.  I  am  neither  fond  of  Indian  politics,  nor  desire  to  dogma- 
tise on  them.  It  is  possible  that  I  may  be  wrong,  but  for  the  life  of  me, 
I  cannot  see  it.  I  admit  the  goodness  of  the  present  Boundary,  but  I 
affirm  we  pay  too  dearly  for  it.  And  even  could  we  afford  it  financially, 
which  I  do  not  think  we  can,  the  present  question  is,  can  w'e  maintain  it 
in  the  present  crisis  ?  I  know  myself  that  I  would  give  it  up  joyfully,  to 
have  the  European  troops  and  Punjab  force  which  is  now  trans-Indus, 
before  Delhi.  We  should  then  see  an  instantaneous  change  in  affairs. 
The  enemy  would  be  driven  within  the  walls,  and  another  week  would 
see  us  rnasters  of  the  place.  Surely  you  cannot  fail  to  see  the  ruinous 
consequences  of  delay.  Gwalior  has  gone  ;  a  day  or  so  hence  we  shall 
hear  of  the  Nerbudda  being  up  ;  then  Nagpur  ;  and,  by  the  time  our 
European  troops  are  out,  we  shall  have,  literally,  to  recover  all  India. 
Only  think  of  the  miseries  which  in  the  meantime  are  being  endured  by 
our  countrymen  and  countrywomen  in  various  parts  of  India.  The  evils 
which  will  have  been  caused  by  General  Hewitt's  incompetency,  on  May 
10,  and  the  subsequent  delay  in  not  marching  on  Delhi,  will  probably  be 
felt  for  the  next  fifty  years. 

I  add  here  an  extract  from  an  ofificial  despatch  to  Lord  Canning, 
dated  June  25,  in  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  sums  up  his  own  and 
his  opponents'  views  thus  : — 

If  we  maintained  Peshawur,  and  the  Punjab  troops  remained  loyal, 
we  could  still  hold  our  own,  but  if  they  turn  against  us  we  must  shut 
ourselves  up  in  our  forts,  until  an  army  from  England  can  work  its  way 
up  to  the  Punjab.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  retire  from  Peshawur  and 
Kohat,  we  could  probably  hold  all  the  country  Cis-Indus,  and  at  any  rate 
have  all  our  European  troops  in  hand,  ready  to  act  together.  We  should 
be  among  a  peaceable,  and  not,  as  in  Peshawur,  among  a  hostile  popula- 
tion. We  should,  in  every  view  that  the  Chief  Commissioner  can  take 
of  the  case,  be  in  an  infinitely  stronger  position  than  if  we  retained  Pe- 
shawur. Brigadier  Cotton,  Colonel  Edwardes  and  Nicholson  are  against 
this  plan,  and  consider  that  Peshawur  must  be  held  to  the  last,  even 
though  we  have  to  give  up  all  the  intervening  country  between  it  and 
Lahore.     They  answer  that  we  cannot  retire  from  Peshawur  with  safety, 


1 857  ABANDONMENT   OF   PESHAWUR.  131 

and  that  such  a  movement  will  be  the  signal  for  a  general  insurrection. 
This  would  probably  be  the  case  Trans-Indus,  but  our  troops  would 
have  no  more  than  forty  miles  to  move,  and  though  they  have  a  river  to 
cross,  the  passage  can  be  commanded  by  our  guns.  On  this  side  the 
Indus,  there  would  be  no  insurrection  till  the  eleventh  hour,  for  the  people 
are  not  only  well-disposed,  but  what  is  still  more  important,  unarmed. 
It  is  doubtless  a  choice  of  two  evils,  neither  of  which  I  would  adopt 
until  the  last  moment,  but  it  is  a  choice  which  we  may  have  to  make, 
and  if  it  prove  a  wrong  one,  may  prove  fatal. 

Early  in  July  a  letter  came  from  Harvey  Greathed,  which  not 
only  announced  that  the  notion  of  an  assault  had  been  given  up, 
but  in  spite  of  the  reinforcements  which  were  arriving  day  by  day 
from  the  Punjab,  hinted,  in  no  obscure  terms,  that  even  the  bolder 
and  more  adventurous  spirits  in  the  camp,  of  whom  he  himself  was 
certainly  one,  were  beginning  to  utter  the  ominous  word,  retreat. 

July  4,  1857. 
The  determination  to  take  Delhi  by  assault  has  been  twice  on  the  eve 
of  execution,  and  I  no  longer  feel  confident  that  it  will  be  again  so  far 
matured.  And,  supposing  I  am  right,  the  question  will  arise  whether 
we  should  maintain  our  position,  or  raise  the  siege,  and  dispose  of  our 
forces  as  may  best  secure  the  public  interests  until  a  second  campaign 
be  opened. 

A  fortnight  later  came  a  more  alarming  letter  still  from  General 
Archdale  Wilson  himself,  a  man  on  whose  accession  to  power,  in  place 
of  Reed,  John  Lawrence  and  others  had  been  disposed,  and  not 

without  reason,  to  place  the  highest  hopes. 

July  1 3. 
I  have  consulted  with  Colonel  Baird  Smith,  the  Chief  Engineer  with 
the  Force,  and  we  have  both  come  to  the  conclusion  that  any  attempt 
now  to  assault  Delhi  must  end  in  defeat  and  disaster.  The  Force  consists 
at  present  of  2,200  Europeans  and  1,500  natives,  or  a  total  of  3,700 
bayonets.  .  .  .  To  enable  me,  however,  to  hold  this  position,  I  must  be 
strongly  reinforced,  and  that  speedily.  I  hear  there  is  no  chance  of  relief 
from  the  Forces  collecting  below,  as  their  attention  has  been  directed 
towards  Oude.  I  therefore  earnestly  call  upon  you  to  send  me,  as  quickly 
as  possible,  such  support  as  you  can  from  the  Punjab.  ...  I  candidly 
tell  you  that  unless  speedily  reinforced,  this  Force  will  soon  be  so  reduced 
by  casualties  and  sickness,  that  nothing  will  be  left  but  a  retreat  to 
Kurnal.  The  disasters  attending  such  an  unfortunate  proceeding  I 
cannot  calculate.  May  I  request  an  immediate  reply  by  telegraph, 
stating  what  aid  in  reinforcements  you  can  afford  me,  and  when  I  may 
expect  them  to  join  my  camp  ? 

What  was  to  be  done  now  ?  Edwardes  and  Cotton  and  Nicholson 


132  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

had  again  and  again  warned  John  Lawrence  that  he  was  denuding 
the  Punjab  to  a  dangerous  extent,  and  that  he  ought  not,  under  any 
circumstances,  to  send  another  European  to  Delhi.  They  had  told 
him  also  and  told  him  truly  that  after  the  Herculean  exertions 
which  he  had  made  to  reinforce  the  army  before  Delhi,  no  one 
could  blame  him  if  he  now  made  his  own  province  secure  and  re- 
fused to  see  dangers  which  it  was  convenient  for  him  not  to  see. 
No  one  indeed  !  But  it  never  occurred  to  John  Lawrence,  if  he 
saw  his  way  clear  to  do  a  thing,  to  ask  whether  he  would  be  praised 
or  blamed  for  doing  it.  '  I  look  ' — he  wrote  to  Barnes  in  words 
which  might  have  been  the  motto  of  his  whole  life  and  not  least  of 
the  last  few  months  of  it — '  I  look  for  neither  fame  nor  abuse.  All 
I  wish  is  to  do  my  duty,  and  save  our  rule  and  those  connected 
with  it.'  Noble  words,  which  those  who  have  taunted  him,  during 
the  recent  paroxysm  of  aggressive  war,  with  his  '  retiring  modesty,' 
that  is  to  say  with  his  moral  courage,  would  do  well  to  try  to  under- 
stand ! 

And  how  did  he  answer  General  Archdale  Wilson's  urgent  ap- 
peal ?     Quick  as  thought,  quick,  at  all  events,  as  the  electric  wire 

could  take  it,  back  went  the  inspiriting  message. 

July  21. 

I  have  received  yours  of  the  i8th.     We  can  send  you  off  at  once  1,700 

men  thus 

Her  Majesty's  52nd  ......  600 

Military  Police  ......  400 

Kumaon  Battery         ......  400 

Mooltani  Horse  ......  200 

Nine  Pounder  Battery  .....  100 

These  to  be  followed  up  by  some  2,000  more.    Why  not  get  a  portion  of 

the  Meerut  Force  ? 

It  was  a  message  which  might  well  breathe  fresh  heart  and  hope 
into  the  small  force  upon  the  ridge,  who  had  sunk  down  under  the 
influence  of  the  reiterated  attacks  of  the  enemy,  of  exposure  to  the 
sun,  of  fatigue,  and  of  disease  to  the  number  of  3,700  effectives. 
But  John  Lawrence  was  determined  to  do  more,  and,  if  possible,  to 
make  the  word  'retreat '  to  be  a  word  that  should  not  be  so  much 
as  whispered  at  Delhi.  And  he  wrote  as  follows  to  Norman,  Assist- 
ant Adjutant-General  of  the  Force,  and  to  Daly  of  the  Guides,  two 
kindred  spirits  to  whom  he  knew  that  he  would  not  write  in  vain. 

Lahore  :  July  24. 
My  dear  Norman, — You  will  have  found  that  I  have  done  all  I  can  in 
the  way  of  reinforcements.     Within  the  next   fifteen  days   you  ought  to 


i857  ABANDONMENT   OF   PESHAWUR.  ^       1 33 

get  the  Kumaon  Battalion,  the  52nd  Queen's,  and  the  wing-  of  the  6ist, 
besides  a  new  corps  of  Punjab  Infantry  formed  out  of  the  Pohce  Battal- 
ions of  Kangra  and  Umritsur.  There  are  no  Poorbeas  in  any  of  them. 
Green's  corps,  minus  its  Poorbeas,  ought  to  be  down  very  soon.  In 
short,  I  hope  that  these  reinforcements  will  make  you  all  quite  comfort- 
able. I  do  not  think  that  after  this  we  can  send  you  any  more  Euro- 
peans. Exclusive  of  the  Peshawur  force,  we  are  retaining  barely  2,400 
Infantry  to  hold  the  country,  and  keep  all  the  armed  and  disarmed 
regiments  quiet.  ...  If  you  cannot  take  Delhi  with  the  aid  now  sent, 
at  least  hold  your  own,  and  let  Pandy  break  his  head  against  your  en- 
trenchments. You  will  by  this  policy  wear  him  out.  But  retreat  is  out 
of  the  question.  It  will  be  followed  by  ruin  and  disgrace.  My  idea  is 
that  General  Wilson  should  send  the  new  corps,  the  7th  Punjab  Infantry, 
under  Stafford  to  Saharunpore,  and  bring  the  Ghoorkas  to  the  army.  I 
would  also  send  a  wing  of  Green's  corps  to  Meerut,  and  bring  a  large 
part  of  the  60th  Rifles  to  Delhi.  Again,  when  the  Beluchis  get  to  Delhi, 
they  might  go  to  Meerut,  and  the  wing  of  Green's  come  over.  Thus  you 
would  have  your  best  soldiers  at  Delhi,  the  second  best  at  Meerut,  and 
the  young  ones  at  Saharunpore,  quite  good  enough  to  settle  the  Goojurs 
and  other  rascals.  .  .  .  The  Punjab  is  very  quiet,  and,  so  far  as  I  can 
judge,  loyal  also.  Please  God,  I  will  keep  it  so.  But  recollect,  if  you 
fall  back  from  Delhi,  our  cause  is  gone.  Neither  the  Punjab  nor  any- 
where else  can  stand.     Show  this  to  General  Wilson. 

To  Daly  he  writes  : — 

If  we  are  beaten  at  Delhi  and  have  to  retreat,  our  army  will  be  de- 
stroyed. Neither  Peshawur  nor  even  the  Punjab  will  then  be  of  much 
good.  Botli  will  go.  Whereas  the  Peshawur  and  Kohat  force  would 
give  9,000,  besides  some  30  guns.  Now,  in  my  mind,  such  a  force 
brought  into  the  field  in  time. will  turn  the  tide,  or,  at  any  rate,  stem  it 
until  the  cold  weather.  But  such  a  force  when  the  army  before  Delhi  is 
gone,  and  the  Punjab  in  insurrection,  will  be  swallowed  up  in  the  gen- 
eral whirlwind.  I  hope  and  expect  that  there  will  be  no  occasion  for  the 
sacrifice.  But  no  man  can  say  what  is  in  store  for  us,  and  it  is  necessary 
that  we  take  a  statesmanlike  view  of  the  subject,  and  decide  on  the  line  of 
policy  to  be  followed.  Otherwise,  when  the  time  comes,  we  shall  be  un- 
able to  act.  Read  this  to  Chamberlain,  and  let  me  know  his  views.  I 
am  for  holding  Lahore  and  Mooltan  to  extremity,  and  no  more,  sending 
the  women  and  children  down   to  Kurrachi,  if  things  go  wrong  at  Delhi. 

To  Edwardes  of  course  he  told  what  he  had  done,  and  announced 
once  more  what  he  calls  hfs  'unalterable  resolution.' 

July  24. 
...   If  matters  do  not  prosper,  if  more  aid  be  required  and  Govern- 
ment leave  the  matter  to  me,  I  will  recall  all  the  troops  from  Kohat  and 
Peshawur,  and  send    every  man    we  can    spare,  which    would   be    the 


134       %  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

greater  part  of  the  Europeans  and  all  the  Punjabis,  to  Delhi.  The  battle, 
in  iny  judgment,  is  to  be  won  or  lost  at  Delhi,  and  nowhere  else.  If  our 
army  retreat  from  Delhi,  it  is  lost.  Nothing  but  disgrace  and  ruin  will 
follow.  If  it  stand  fast,  I  will  not  see  it  perish  for  want  of  aid.  This 
would  be  ungrateful  and  impolitic.  If  it  succumb  to  numbers  our  fate 
will  be  sealed.  We  have  about  2,400  Europeans,  including  300  men 
now  on  their  way  from  Kurrachi.  We  could  not  hold  Mooltan  and  La- 
hore long.  The  former  is  the  sole  line  of  retreat  or  for  aid.  It  must 
be  held  as  long  as  we  can  manage  it.  The  fort  at  Lahore  is  now 
crammed  with  women  and  children.  What  can  we  do  when  those 
of  all  the  out  stations  come  in  ?  By  attempting  to  hold  Peshawur, 
we  simply  throw  away  our  chance — such  a  chance  as  6,000  good  soldiers 
added  to  the  force  at  Delhi,  or  the  remnant  of  it,  would  give.  This  is 
my  unalterable  resolution  if  the  matter  be  left  in  my  hands. 

Having  placed  once  more  before  Lord  Canning,  from  whom  he 
had  as  yet  received  no  message  of  any  kind,  the  alternatives  pro- 
posed, he  adds  : 

It  is  for  your  Lordship  to  decide  which  course  we  are  to  pursue.  In 
the  event  of  misfortune  at  Delhi,  are  we  to  leave  that  army  to  its  fate 
and  endeavour  to  hold  our  own,  or  shall  we,  by  a  timely  retirement  from 
across  the  Indus,  consolidate  our  resources  on  the  Punjab,  and  maintain 
the  struggle  under  the  walls  of  Delhi  ?  I  pray  that  your  Lordship  will 
decide  one  way  or  the  other.  If  we  are  left  to  decide  the  matter  our- 
selves, time  will  be  lost  in  vain  discussions,  and  by  the  time  we  decide 
upon  the  proper  course  to  follow,  it  will  prove  too  late  to  act  effectually. 

I  asked  for  '  full  powers  '  from  your  Lordship,  with  a  view  of  acting  on 
my  own  judgment  in  this  and  other  important  matters.  Power  would 
give  strength  and  unity  of  action.  I  would  try  and  save  Government 
from  dangers  by  the  selection  of  the  best  men  available  for  commands, 
and  by  the  prompt  removal  from  authority  of  incapable  men,  but  I  have 
no  desire  to  press  your  lordship  on  this  or  any  other  point.  I  will  do 
all  I  can  for  the  public  good  and  leave  the  rest  to  a  higher  power.  We 
have  some  good  men  in  the  Punjab,  and  the  unanimity  which  has  prevailed 
has  hitherto  been  remarkable.  I  have  let  Nicholson  go  off  to  Delhi  with 
the  reinforcements,  for  he  is  the  ablest  soldier  we  have  on  this  side  of  India. 

To  General  Cotton  a  few  days  later  (July  30),  he  says  : 

What  think  you  ?  We  have  not  4,500  effective  Europeans  and  Native 
Cavalry  and  Infantry  before  Delhi.  There  are  1,100  laid  up  sick  or  with 
wounds.  God  grant  that  our  reinforcements  may  arrive  in  time  !  I 
anticipate  that  1,100  Europeans  and  1,300  Native  Infantry  will  be  down 
by  the  1 5th  proximo.  My  policy  is  to  support  the  army  as  far  as  possible. 
If  it  fail  all  will  fail.     This  is  the  crisis  of  our  fate. 

The  crisis  indeed  it  was.     Chamberlain  and  Norman,  Daly  and 


i857  ABANDONiMENT   OF   PESHAWUR.  1 35 

Wilson  were  all  writing  to  John  Lawrence  to  say  that  what  they 
wanted  was  not  raw  levies  of  any  kind,  but  seasoned  troops, 
European  and  Native,  and  of  these  he,  even  he,  felt  at  last  that  he 
had  no  more  to  spare.  '  I  have  sent  all  I  can,  perhaps  more  than 
I  ought  to  have  sent.'  The  Neemuch  mutineers  had  just  poured 
into  Delhi.  The  ghastly  massacre  at  Cawnpore  had  taken  place, 
and  the  tales  of  foul  treachery,  of  women  and  children  slaughtered 
in  cold  blood  and  subjected,  as  was  then  believed — though  wrongly 
believed — to  indignities  which  were  worse  than  death,  had  stirred 
to  fever-heat  the  pulses  of  even  the  more  self-restrained  of  our  sol- 
diers upon  the  Ridge,  and  had  excited  wild  yearnings  for  revenge, 
which,  so  long  as  the  guilty  city  frowned  in  its  unbroken  strength 
before  them,  could  not  be  gratified.  At  Lahore  itself  the  26th 
Regiment,  which  had  long  been  disarmed,  had  broken  out,  almost 
under  the  eyes  of  the  Chief  Commissioner,  directly  after  his  arrival 
there,  into  mutiny  and  murder,  and  had  managed  to  move  off  as 
an  organised  force.  Alarming  letters  were  coming  in,  some  from 
Cashmere,  saying  that  Golab  Singh,  who — whatever  his  crimes 
towards  his  subjects — had  been  true  to  those  who  had  placed  him 
on  his  throne,  was  on  his  deathbed,  and  suggesting  that  a  change 
of  rulers  might,  very  probably,  involve  a  change  of  policy  ;  others 
from  Lumsden  at  Candahar,  warning  Sir  John  Lawrence  that  the 
delay  before  Delhi  was  exciting  great  attention  there,  and  that  the 
Afghans  were  *  longing  to  have  a  slap  at  us. ' 

But  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  darkest  hour  was  that  before  the 
dawn.  On  August  i,  the  small  army  on  the  Ridge  won  a  decisive 
victory  over  the  mutineers.  News  arrived  that  the  force  intended 
for  China  had  been  intercepted,  had  landed  at  Calcutta,  and  was 
being  pushed  up  the  country  ;  that  the  English  Government  had 
decided,  directly  they  heard  of  the  outbreak,  to  send  out  reinforce- 
ments to  India  ;  that  Havelock,  after  winning  victory  over  victory 
in  his  brilliant  march,  had  reached,  though  he  had  not  yet  cleansed, 
the  human  shambles  at  Cawnpore,  that  he  was  about  to  relieve 
Lucknow,  and  then  press  on  for  Agra  and  Delhi  ;  that  though 
Golab  Singh  was  dead,  his  son  Runbeer  continued  to  tread  in  his 
safe  and  easy  footsteps,  and  was  prepared  to  send  down  a  Cash- 
mere contingent,  3,250  strong,  under  the  control  of  Richard  Law- 
rence, to  Delhi  ;  that  the  mutineers  of  the  26th  had  been  over- 
taken and  killed  almost  to  the  last  man,  and  that  the  Afghans,  see- 
ing which  way  the  wind  was  blowing,  instead  of  invading  India 
were  anxious,  as  Edwardes  wrote,  to  aid  us  in  reconquering  it. 
And  thus  before  the  message,  sent  vui  Madras  and  Bombay  from 


1T,6  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE,  1857 

Lord  Canning  to  Sir  John  Lawrence,  '  Hold  on  to  Peshawur  to  the 
last,'  reached  him  on  the  7th  of  the  month,  the  tide  had  turned 
decisively  in  our  favour,  and  he  was  able  in  mentioning  the  matter 
to  Edwardes  to  speak  thus  about  it  :  *  The  Governor-General  bids 
me  hold  on  to  the  last  at  Peshawur.  I  do  not  however  now  think 
that  we  shall  be  driven  to  any  extremity.  The  tide  is  turning  very 
decidedly  against  the  mutineers  at  Delhi,  and,  before  long,  I  hope 
to  see  them  all  destroyed.  Not  a  man  of  the  26th  appears  to  have 
escaped  ;  and  we  have  all  the  other  corps  pitched  in  cantonments, 
under  the  range  of  the  guns.' 

Thus  ended  the  Peshawur  episode.  The  question  had  ceased  to 
be  a  burning  question  before  Lord  Canriing's  decision  arrived,  and 
simply  because  John  Lawrence's  arduous  exertions  had  made  it 
possible  that  it  should  do  so.  I  have  treated  the  subject  at  con- 
siderable length  for  the  reasons  which  I  have  already  given.  Nor 
do  I  think  that  anyone  who  has  given  even  a  cursory  glance  at  the 
extracts  I  have  made — whether  he  is  disposed  to  agree  Mith 
Edwardes  or  with  Lawrence,  to  think  that  PeshaAvur  or  Delhi  was 
of  the  most  vital  importance — will  ever  venture  to  reproduce  Lord 
Cranbrook's  sneer,  or  to  regard  it  otherwise  than  Sir  John  Law- 
rence himself  regarded  it.  For  it  is,  beyond  question,  clear  from 
the  letters  I  have  quoted  that  John  Lawrence  proposed  to  abandon 
Peshawur  only  under  certain  conditions,  which  though  they  did  not 
occur,  might  have  occurred  at  any  time,  and  would  most  certainly 
have  done  so,  had  it  not  been  for  his  moral  courage  and  his  un- 
flagging exertions.  It  is  also  clear  from  them  that  John  Lawrence 
was  convinced  that  on  the  capture  of  Delhi  within  a  reasonable 
time,  not  only  the  continuance  of  our  rule,  but  the  lives  of  every 
Englishman  in  Upper  India  depended,  and  that  no  sacrifice  would 
be  too  great  to  make  if  that  object  could  not  be  attained  without 
it.  When  therefore — and  I  sometimes  use  nere  the  words  of  the 
friend  who,  at  Lord  Lawrence's  request,  has  made  a  special  study 
of  all  the  Peshawur  documents,  and  with  whose  conclusions  I  find 
myself,  after  an  independent  study  of  them,  in  thorough  agreement 
— the  siege  of  Delhi  had  been  protracted  to  the  utmost  limits  con- 
sistent with  the  safety  of  the  Empire  ;  when  every  soldier  who 
could  be  spared  from  the  Punjab  had  been  hurried  down  to  the 
scene  of  danger,  if  the  general  in  command  had  still  declared  that 
the  number  of  his  troops  was  unequal  to  the  task  before  them,  or  if 
he  had  been  unsuccessful  in  the  assault,  which  would  have  been 
the  wiser  course  to  pursue  ?  Retain  Peshawur  and  leave  the  troops 
at  Delhi  either  to  maintain  their  position  as  best  they  might,  or 


l857  ABANDONMENT   OF    PESHAWUR.  ^      137 

fall  back  to  Kurnal  pursued  by  the  triumphant  soldiery  from  behind 
and  surrounded  by  a  hostile  population  in  front  and  on  either  flank  ? 
Or  abandon  Peshawur,  hold  Attock  in  strength,  and  reinforce  the 
army  at  Delhi  with  the  bulk  of  the  troops  thus  made  available  ? 
I  incline  to  think  that  most  calmly  judging  people  would  say  that 
the  wiser  course  was  that  suggested  by  the  man  who  was  responsi- 
ble for  the  whole  of  the  province,  and  who  had  shown  throughout 
that  he  took  not  the  provincial  or  the  local,  but  the  imperial  view 
of  the  situation.  He  knew,  and  he  was  the  only  man  in  the  Punjab 
who  did  know,  the  whole  of  the  facts  of  the  case.  It  was  to  John 
Lawrence  and  not  to  Edwardes,  or  to  Nicholson,  or  to  Cotton,  that 
reports  came  in  from  every  part  of  the  province,  detailing  the  exact 
needs  and  dangers  of  each.  It  was  he  who  knew,  through  natives 
like  Nihal  Sing,  and  a  host  of  others,  exactly  where  the  shoe 
pinched,  and  what  was  the  amount  of  strain  upon  their  loyalty 
which  the  Punjab  population  were  likely  to  bear.  He  knew  exactly, 
— what  Edwardes  and  Nicholson  and  Cotton  could  only  guess — 
the  extent  to  which  in  compliance  with  their  requisitions,  as  well  as 
of  others  of  his  lieutenants,  he  had  denuded  the  heart  of  his  prov- 
ince that  he  might  maintain  its  extremities.  In  particular  his  fre- 
quent communications  with  Barnes,  Van  Cortlandt  and  others, 
showed  him  the  exact  condition  of  the  cis-Sutlej  states,  and  the  in- 
flammable nature  of  the  materials  through  which  our  army,  if  it 
were  defeated,  would  have  to  cut  its  way. 

He  proposed,  it  will  be  observed,  not  to  abandon  Peshawur  to 
its  fate,  to  'leave  it  in  the  air,'  but  formally  to  cede  it  to  the  Af- 
ghans. It  was  a  step  sufficiently  opposed  to  the  views  which  have, 
of  late,  been  prevalent  in  official  circles  in  England  and  in  India. 
But  it  was  not  a  step  which  John  Lawrence,  with  all  his  immense 
knowledge  of  the  frontier  and  of  the  Hindu,  Punjabi  and  Pathan 
races,  with  his  keen  appreciation  also  of  the  danger  to  India  which 
the  approach  of  Russia  might  involve,  thought,  either  then  or  later, 
would  be  to  our  disadvantage.  Of  course  nothing  but  imperious 
and  imperial  necessity,  nothing  but  the  salus  popnli  suprcma  lex 
would  have  induced  him  to  retire  from  Peshawur  while  there  were 
still  disturbances  within  our  frontier.  But  none  the  less  he  thought 
that  what  might  then  have  seemed  a  measure  of  desperation,  would 
afterwards  prove  a  source  of  strength  and  stability  to  the  whole  of 
our  empire  in  the  East. 

Lord  Canning,  writing  at  the  other  end  of  India,  and  knowing 
nothing  of  what  was  passing  in  the  Punjab,  except  such  fragments 
of  news   as  those   few  letters  of  Sir  John   Lawrence   which   ever 


138      *  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

reached  their  destination  gave  him,  thought,  it  is  said,  that  the 
proposal  might  be  the  result  of  failing  health,  of  over  tension  on 
the  nerves,  such  as  may  well  fall  during  a  great  crisis  on  a  very- 
Hercules.  But  that  such  was  not  the  case  is  clear  from  the  whole 
series  of  extracts  I  have  given  ;  from  the  positive,  though  inci- 
dental statement  of  John  Lawrence  himself,  which  I  find  in  a  letter 
to  Edwardes  of  June  18  :  '  My  face,  thank  you,  is  quite  well.  The 
aches  and  pains  all  went  away  in  a  most  extraordinary  manner 
after  you  left ;  '  and  from  the  fact  that  when  the  mutiny  in  the 
Punjab  was  over  and  the  reconstruction  of  the  empire  was  under 
discussion,  he  deliberately  proposed,  in  an  elaborate  memorandum, 
extracts  from  which  I  now  proceed  to  give,  to  retire  from  the 
Peshawur  valley,  and  that  from  these  views,  to  the  end  of  his  life, 
he  never  swerved. 

After  discussing  at  length  the  rival  plans  of  Neville  Chamber- 
lain and  Herbert  Edwardes  for  holding  the  Peshawur  valley,  he 
proceeds  to  indicate  his  own  views  as  follows  : 

.  .  .  But  the  Chief  Commissioner  is  strongly  inclined  to  the  opinion 
that  the  best  policy  would  be  to  make  the  whole  valley  and  Kohat  over 
to  the  Afghans,  and  confine  ourselves  to  the  line  of  the  Indus  in  that 
quarter. 

The  Chief  Commissioner  has  arrived  at  this  conclusion  after  careful 
consideration  and  much  reluctance.  His  views  were  all  the  other  way. 
It  has  only  been  by  slow  degrees  and  long  consideration  that  he  has 
formed  this  opinion. 

The  line  of  the  Indus  possesses  the  following  advantages  over  that  of 
the  mountain  range.  It  is  considerably  shorter,  and  therefore  requires 
fewer  troops  for  its  defence. 

The  river  is  in  itself  a  mighty  bulwark,  broad,  deep,  and  rapid.  It 
has  no  fords.  Maharaja  Runjeet  Sing  once  indeed  crossed  his  cavalry 
near  Jorbella  into  Eusufzaie,  but  he  lost  five  hundred  horsemen  in  so 
doing.  An  able  engineer,  at  a  moderate  cost,  would  make  the  left  bank 
of  the  Indus  impregnable  against  an  invader.  The  boats  would  be  all 
on  our  side,  secure  under  our  batteries.  On  the  right  bank  of  the  Indus 
there  is  no  timber  procurable  from  which  to  make  rafts,  even  if  an  enemy 
dared  to  essay  the  passage. 

The  Chief  Commissioner  does  not  affirm  that  the  passage  of  the  Indus 
would  be  impracticable  to  a  military  body  under  any  circumstances,  but 
that  in  the  presence  of  an  enemy  of  any  ordinary  activity,  it  ought  to 
prove  ruinous  to  all  those  who  effected  a  landing  on  the  left  bank. 

Again,  in  a  strong  position  cis-Indus  we  should  be  among  a  compar- 
atively civilised  and  obedient  people.  We  should  be  in  a  healthy  country 
close  to  our  resources.  All  along  the  Indus  down  to  Kalabagh  the  bank 
is  steep,  high  and  rugged,  and  up  to  this  point  we  might  have  steamers 


i857  ABANDONMENT   OF   PESHAWUR.  1 39 

plying  all  the  year  round,  a  great  addition  to  our  strength.  And  for 
what  objects  do  we  hold  Peshavvur  and  Kohat  which  could  not  be  at- 
tained by  the  occupation  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Indus  in  strength  ?  These 
districts  cost  us,  under  the  best  arrangements,  at  least  fourfold  their  in- 
come. This  money,  otherwise  expended,  would  add  to  our  material 
resources  greatly.  We  neither  really  conciliate  the  people  nor  the 
Afghan  nation.  If  the  friendship  of  the  Afghans  is  to  be  gained,  if  it  is 
indeed  worth  having,  this  object  is  more  likely  to  be  accomplished  by 
surrendering  these  important  possessions,  which  to  them  would  prove 
invaluable,  but  to  us  would  ever  continue  a  fruitful  source  of  danger, 
expense,  and  loss  of  life.  So  long  as  we  hold  Peshawur,  the  Afghans 
must  have  a  strong  inducement  to  side  against  us  in  any  invasion  of 
India.  By  confining  ourselves  to  the  line  of  the  Indus,  as  far  down  as 
the  confines  of  Bunnoo,  we  should  avoid  the  necessity  of  maintaining 
a  large  body  of  native  troops,  in  round  numbers  probably  ten  thousand 
men. 

It  may  be  urged  that  if  we  surrender  Peshawur  and  Kohat,  we  shall 
eventually  be  compelled  to  give  up  the  Derajat  also,  and  perhaps  Scinde. 
The  Chief  Commissioner  does  not  think  this  will  be  necessary.  The 
Derajat  indeed,  but  for  the  advantage  of  holding  both  banks  of  the  Indus, 
is  not  worth  having.  It  never  has  paid,  nor  can  pay  the  cost  of  its  oc- 
cupation. The  people,  however,  are  of  a  very  different  character  from 
those  of  Kohat  and  Peshawur  ;  the  inhabitants  of  the  adjacent  mountains 
are  more  manageable  than  those  of  the  range  further  north.  The  navi- 
gability of  the  Indus  up  to  Kalabagh  by  properly  constructed  steamers 
would  prove  a  great  advantage.  However,  in  the  event  of  formidable 
invasion  from  the  westward,  it  would  be  a  question  whether  we  should 
not,  for  a  time,  abandon  the  Derajat,  and  confine  ourselves  to  the  line 
of  the  Indus. 

Neither  the  Punjab  nor  India  generally  are  one  whit  more  secure  by 
our  holding  the  line  of  the  Suleiman  ranges  than  that  of  the  Indus.  So 
long  as  we  are  strong  in  the  country,  we  have  really  nothing  to  fear.  It 
may  be  safely  predicted  that  there  is  but  one  invasion  from  the  west 
which  can  ever  prove  formidable.  There  is  but  one  which  will  ever 
occur  so  long  as  we  are  strong  at  home.  Our  danger  in  India  has  been 
proved,  and,  as  some  had  foreseen,  was  much  more  from  within  than 
from  without. 

Few  will  deny,  whatever  may  be  said — and,  of  course,  there  is 
much  to  be  said — on  the  other  side,  that  this  is  a  weighty  state 
paper.  Few  will  deny  that  it  is  quite  possible,  as  Sir  John  Law- 
rence believed,  that  the  restoration  of  Peshawur,  *  their  heart's 
desire,'  the  'jewel  of  their  empire,'  to  the  Afghans,  would  have 
bound  them  to  us  by  the  best  of  securities,  the  feeling  that  they 
have  much  to  gain  by  our  friendship  and  much  to  lose  by  our  hos- 
tility.    It  would,  in  any  case,  have  put  it  out  of  the  i)ower  of 


140  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

Russia  to  dangle  before  their  eyes  the  possession  of  Peshawur  as 
the  reward  of  an  alHance  with  her.  It  would  have  tended  to  pre- 
vent the  dalliance  between  General  Kaufman  and  Shere  Ali,  and, 
assuming  that  the  Government  of  India  had  been  conducted  with 
ordinary  prudence  and  morality,  would  have  rendered  doubly  un- 
likely the  dangers  of  the  second  and  third  Afghan  wars. 

In  any  case,  the  course  recommended  in  John  Lawrence's 
memorandum  received  the  support  of  two  soldiers  unsurpassed  for 
courage  and  for  chivalry  in  the  recent  history  of  India  ;  of  Sir 
James  Outram  *  and  Sir  Neville  Chamberlain. 

I  have  not  (says  Chamberlaui  in  writing  to  Lawrence  on  June  il, 
1859)  ^'^^^  sight  of  the  question  during  my  tour  of  inspection  along  the 
frontier,  and  I  may  indeed  say  that  I  have  courted  the  society  of  all  ranks 
and  classes  for  the  double  object  of  becoming  acquainted  with  the  pres- 
ent state  of  public  affairs,  both  within  and  beyond  our  border,  and  study- 
ing, to  the  best  of  my  ability,  all  the  bearings  of  the  Peshawur  question. 
When  we  discussed  the  matter  in  July  last  (1858),  I  daresay  you  will 
recollect  that  although  I  saw  much  to  make  withdrawal  advisable,  I 
could  not  bring  myself  to  overcome  what  I  considered  the  loss  of  pres- 
tige attendant  on  a  retrograde  movement,  and  was  in  favour  of  a  sort  of 
medium  course,  by  which  we  might  still  hold  the  districts,  but  at  a  less 
outlay  of  money  and  European  life.  Now,  however,  I  am  in  favour  of 
making  it  over  to  the  Afghans,  and  to  start  with,  to  the  Barukzais,  for  I 
feel  assured  that  such  a  course  would  go  farther  to  preserve  the  peace 
of  this  frontier  against  Russia  or  other  European  influence  than  any- 
thing else  it  is  in  our  power  to  do,  and  that  nothing  short  of  this  will 
bind  the  ruler  of  the  Afghans  to  us,  or  cause  him  to  break  off  entirely 
from  the  Russians. 

If  we  had  the  men  (Europeans)  and  the  money  to  meet  all  enemies,  at 
all  times,  and  from  whatever  countries,  well  and  good.  But  no  man  can 
really  know  our  position  in  India,  and  believe  this  to  be  the  case.  There 
is  too  much  makeshift  for  our  weakness  and  vulnerability  not  to  be 
apparent  to  any  one  who  chooses  to  see  things  as  they  are.  And  on 
this  account,  I,  for  one,  should  be  glad  to  see  the  Afghans  made  our 
friends,  by  making  it  their  interest  to  remain  so.  So  much  do  I  believe 
in  this  that  if  I  were  dying  to-morrow,  I  should  feel  more  at  rest  did  I 
know  that  we  were  going  to  confer  the  two  districts  on  the  Afghans, 
whilst  if  I  were  a  traitor  to  my  country^  I  feel  that  ten  thousand  Russian 
troops,  and  the  promise  of  the  country  up  to  the  Indus,  would  bring 
down  upon  us  a  storm  which  it  would  be  most  difficult  for  us  to  meet 
unless  we  were  able  to  devote  a  large  portion  of  our  thoughts  to  it. 

I  may  add  here,  not  because  it  is  a  matter  of  importance  in  itself, 

'  For  Outram's  views  of  the  subject  see  his  Life,  by  Sir  Frederick  Goldsmid, 
Preface,  p.  13,  and  vol.  ii.,  Appendi.x  K,  p.  424. 


i857  ABANDONMENT   OF   PESHAWUR.  I4I 

but  because,  in  view  of  recent  events,  it  is  not  without  interest  to 
record,  that  shortly  after  his  return  to  England,  at  the  close  of  the 
Mutiny,  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  summoned  to  Windsor,  and  had  a 
long  conversation  with  Prince  Albert  upon  Indian  topics.  He  was 
much  impressed  by  the  minuteness  of  the  Prince's  knowledge,  and 
his  keen  and  appreciative  interest  even  in  the  more  abstruse  of 
Indian  questions,  affording,  as  it  did,  a  marked  contrast  to  many 
English  statesmen  with  whom  he  was  just  then  brought  into  con- 
tact. As  he  was  leaving,  the  Prince  said  to  him,  '  By  the  way,  I 
have  read  your  paper  on  the  abandonment  of  Peshawur,  and  en- 
tirely agree  with  you.'  '  It  struck  me  as  odd  then,'  said  Sir  John 
Lawrence,  in  telling  the  incident  shortly  before  his  death  to  Sir 
George  Young,  who  has  handed  it  on  to  me,  '  that  Prince  Albert 
should  have  seen  and  have  cared  to  study  a  paper  which  I  did  not 
even  know  had  been  presented  to  the  Home  Government  for  their 
consideration,  and  it  strikes  me  as  being  even  more  odd  now,  look- 
ing at  the  quarter  in  which  my  views  are  understood  to  meet  with 
the  most  strenuous  opposition,  that  he  should  have  expressed  such 
an  unqualified  adhesion  to  them.' 

The  extracts  which  I  have  given  from  Sir  John  Lawrence's 
papers  relating  to  Peshawur  appear  to  me — and  I  use,  here  again, 
some  of  the  language  of  Colonel  Randall — to  bring  into  high  relief 
many  marked  features  of  his  character. 

First,  they  display  the  breadth  and  acuteness  of  vision  which 
enabled  him  at  once  to  understand  that  the  speedy  capture  of 
Delhi  was  the  pivot  on  which  everything  else  turned. 

Secondly,  they  exhibit  the  vitality  of  action  which  he  himself 
immediately  brought  to  bear  on  the  salient  point,  the  efforts  which 
he  made  to  inspire  a  like  desire  in  others,  and  the  constancy  and 
determination  with  which  he  strove  to  bring  about  a  successful 
issue,  undeterred  by  any  minor  difficulties  and  complications  else- 
where. 

Third,  they  show  the  unusual  combination  of  a  courage  to  accept 
responsibility  and  to  strike  out  a  line  of  his  own  when  circumstances 
demanded  it,  with  a  readiness  to  submit  to  superior  authority,  when 
— as  in  the  case  of  Lord  Dalhousie's  wish  to  conclude  a  treaty  with 
Afghanistan,  and  of  Lord  Canning's  order  to  hold  on  to  Peshawur 
to  the  last — it  was  brought  to  bear  upon  him. 

Fourth,  we  may  observe  the  eager  quest  after  knowledge  which 
could  be  obtained  from  persons  acting  on  the  spot.  Such  enquiries 
are  dictated  by  the  most  obvious  considerations  of  prudence,  of 
justice,  of  necessity,  but  bitter  experience  has  shown  that  these  con- 


142  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

siderations  are  not  quite  invariably  recognised  by  Indian  rulers. 
'Local  experience,  I'll  have  none  of  it,'  is  a  maxim,  practical  and 
theoretical,  which  may  land  us  at  any  time  in  disasters  as  bad  as 
those  of  an  Afghan  war.  But  the  very  fact  that  the  value  of  local 
experience  is  not  always  recognised  even  by  rulers  who  are  quite 
new  to  the  country  which  they  are  called  on  to  rule,  makes  it  all 
the  more  remarkable  that  a  man  whose  own  local  experience  and 
knowledge  were  so  great  should  never  have  been  unwilling  to  hear 
what  even  the  youngest  and  most  subordinate  officer  had  to  say  on 
any  question  which  affected  the  locality  in  which  he  happened  to 
be  serving.  John  Lawrence's  invariable  practice,  as  we  have  seen 
throughout  this  biography,  was  before  he  took  any  step  of  impor- 
tance to  court  the  counsel,  the  straightforward  counsel  of  those  who 
were  on  the  spot,  and  were  therefore  best  able  to  form  a  correct 
judgment  on  its  local  bearings. 

Fifth,  and  perhaps  most  important  of  all,  the  Peshawur  episode 
brings  out  his  moral  courage  into  the  strongest  relief.  For  to  which- 
ever view  we  incline — that  of  John  Lawrence,  or  that  of  Herbert 
Edwardes — it  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  it  was  Sir  John  Law- 
rence's policy  which  required  the  higher  and  the  rarer  kind  of 
courage.  His  policy,  as  far  as  the  Punjab  was  concerned,  was,  at 
this  crisis  of  his  life  at  least,  not  a  *  backward '  but  a  '  forward  ' 
policy.  If  he  was  for  drawing  in  his  frontier  under  certain  circum- 
stances, in  one  direction,  it  was  that  he  might  launch  out  much 
further  in  another.  Whatever  other  great  qualities  this  particular 
part  of  the  correspondence  of  Herbert  Edwardes  may  be  consid- 
ered to  indicate,  it  can  hardly  be  maintained  that  it  required  any 
conspicuous  moral  courage  on  his  part  to  say,  as  he  and  his  sup- 
porters repeatedly  did,  '  Anchor,  Hardy,  anchor,'  *  Keep  every  man 
you  have  got,'  '  Save  your  own  province  now,  and  leave  Delhi  to 
look  after  itself.'  '' Sat  patrice  Priatnoque  datum.^  For  it  was  ob- 
vious that  if  the  ruler  of  the  Punjab  was  minded  to  wrap  around 
himself  all  the  forces,  European  or  Native,  which  were  still  to  be 
found  in  his  province  at  the  end  Ci  June,  he  would  have  been  able 
without  any  extraordinary  effort  on  his  part  to  have  ensured  its 
safety  till  all  the  rest  of  India  had  gone.  But  John -Lawrence 
refused  to  contemplate  the  bare  possibility  of  such  comfortable  iso- 
lation. His  courage  seems  to  me  to  differ,  not  so  much  in  degree, 
as  in  kind,  from  that  of  many  of  his  subordinates. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  courage.  There  is  the  buoyant  courage 
of  the  man  who  is  blessed  by  heaven  with  a  sanguine  temperament ; 
the  man  who  will  not  see  danger  ;  who  is  able  to  walk  about  with 


i857  ABANDONMENT   OF    PESHAWUR.  143 

a  smiling  countenance  and  with  a  cheerful  heart  amidst  mines  and 
powder  magazines  ;  who  is  able  to  write  bulletins,  such  as  those 
which  were  issued  almost  daily  from  Lahore  during  the  first  two 
months  of  the  Mutiny  :  'AH  well  in  the  Punjab  ;  no  cause  for 
anxiety,'  and  undoubtedly  helped  to  bring  about  their  own  fulfil- 
ment. Such  a  courage,  it  is  needless  to  say,  tends  to  propagate 
itself,  and  is  simply  invaluable  in  the  case  of  all  those  who  are  not 
bound  by  their  position  to  take  the  farthest  possible  outlook  into 
the  future.  Such,  happily  for  us,  was  the  disposition  of  many  of 
the  chief  officers  in  the  Punjab  at  the  time  of  need  ;  and  such, 
pre-eminently,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  was  the  courage  of  Sir  Robert 
Montgomery. 

But  there  is  another,  and  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  a  higher  courage 
still.  There  is  the  cool  deliberate  courage  of  the  responsible  ruler, 
who  is  determined  to  shut  his  eyes  to  nothing,  to  explore  all  the 
ramifications  of  the  danger,  to  realise  to  himself,  and  to  take  care 
that  others  should  realise  also,  so  far  as  it  is  necessary  for  them  to 
do  so,  the  full  magnitude  of  the  stake  at  issue,  and  then,  having 
counted  the  cost  beforehand,  and  having  recognised  the  possibility, 
or  even  the  probability  of  failure,  sits  down,  determined,  by  every 
means  in  his  power  to  make  the  probable,  improbable,  and  the  pos- 
sible, impossible.  It  is  the  prerogative  of  such  a  man,  and  only  of 
such  a  man,  to  *  look  ahead,'  to  '  take  a  statesmanlike  view,'  and, 
careless  of  what  others  may  say  or  think  of  him,  '  looking  for  neither 
praise  nor  blame,'  with  dogged  determination  to  do  the  right  what- 
ever comes  of  it,  and  to  fall,  if  need  be,  at  his  post.  Such,  it 
appears  to  me,  was  the  courage  of  Sir  John  Lawrence — 

Such  as  moved 
To  height  of  noblest  temper  heroes  old. 
Arming  to  battle,  and  instead  of  rage 
Deliberate  valour  breathed,  firni  and  unmoved 
With  dread  of  death,  to  flight  or  foul  retreat. 

Some  years  afterwards,  when  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  risen  to  be 
Viceroy  of  the  Empire  which  he  had  done  so  much  to  save,  and 
happened  to  be  talking  at  Simla  to  Sir  Charles  and  Lady  Trevelyan 
about  the  exertions  and  perils  of  the  Mutiny,  he  remarked  that,  for 
a  month  together,  he  had  been  inclined  to  doubt  in  his  inmost  heart 
whether  we  could  weather  the  storm.  And  then,  with  an  admirably 
timed  reminiscence,  turning  to  Lady  Trevelyan,  who,  as  is  well 
known,  was  the  favourite  sister  of  Lord  Macaulay,  he  told  her  that 
when  he  had,  from  time  to  time,  felt  disposed  to  be  downhearted, 


144  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

he  had  often  found  himself  lialf  unconsciously  repeating  to  himself 
her  brother's  lines  : — 

How  can  man  die  better 
Than  facing  fearful  odds, 
For  the  ashes  of  his  fathers 
And  the  temples  of  his  gods  ? 

and  had  always  taken  therefrom  fresh  heart  of  grace. 

And,  if  it  be  true,  as  Aristotle  says,  in  his  searching  analysis  of 
the  chief  moral  virtues,  that  the  nobleness  of  courage  depends 
mainly  on  the  consciousness  of  the  sacrifice  which  it  involves,  then, 
assuredly.  Sir  John  Lawrence's  was  the  noblest  kind  of  courage. 
He  was  the  '  Happy  Warrior  ' 

who,  if  he  be  called  upon  to  face 

Some  awful  moment  to  which  heaven  has  joined 

Great  issues,  good  or  bad,  for  human  kind. 

Is  happy  as  a  lover,  and  attired, 

With  sudden  brightness,  like  a  man  inspired, 

And  through  the  heat  of  conflict  keeps  the  law 

In  calmness  made,  and  sees  what  he  foresaw  ; 

Or,  if  an  unexpected  call  succeed. 

Come  when  it  will,  is  equal  to  the  need. 

He  who,  though  thus  endued  as  with  a  sense 

And  faculty  for  storm  and  turbulence, 

Is  yet  a  soul  whose  Master-bias  leans 

To  home-felt  pleasures  and  to  gentle  scenes. 

Sweet  images  !  which  whereso'er  he  be 

Are  at  his  heart,  and  such  fidelity 

It  is  his  darling  passion  to  approve, 

More  brave  for  this  that  he  hath  much  to  love. 


DELHI    1857 


Jahjxs  Ruvi>&  Co.Fruvt. 


NpwYbrk  :  riuuJes  Scj-ibmjr's  Sons 


CHAPTER  V. 

SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF   DELHI. 
July — September,  1S57. 

I  HAVE  been  compelled,  in  order  that  I  may  treat  the  question  of 
the  abandonment  of  Peshawur  in  the  manner  in  which  I  conceive 
it  ought  to  be  treated,  as  an  episode  and  as  a  whole,  to  look  for- 
ward as  well  as  backward  from  the  point  which  I  had  reached  at 
the  close  of  the  third  chapter,  and  to  that  point  I  now  return.  We 
last  saw  Sir  John  Lawrence  at  Rawul  Pindi,  when  the  outbreak, 
which  took  place  there  on  July  8,  had  turned  out — thanks,  chiefly, 
to  his  disregard  of  his  personal  safety — to  be  an  almost  bloodless 
outbreak.  The  time  had  now  come  when  his  presence  was  more 
needed  at  the  centre  of  his  government  than  at  the  more  upland 
station,  where  he  had  happened  to  be  when  the  news  of  the  Meerut 
Mutiny  first  reached  him.  What  a  lifetime,  or  seeming  lifetime, 
had  passed  in  those  two  months  !  How  events  had  crowded  on 
each  other  !  How,  as  one  danger  appeared  to  be  laid,  another  and 
another  had  sprung  up,  like  the  Hydra's  heads,  to  take  its  place  ; 
and  how  each  and  all  of  them  had  been  met,  in  turn,  with  the 
same  imperturbable  resolution  and  the  same  unflagging  energy  ! 

On  June  23,  in  his  rapid  run  to  Murri  and  back.  Sir  John  Law- 
rence had  snatched,  as  I  have  already  shown,  the  one  interval  of 
toilsome  rest  which  he  had  allowed  himself  during  the  whole  period. 
But  the  redoubled  energy,  the  refreshing  of  the  soul,  the  vis  viva 
breathed  into  him  by  the  sight  of  the  calm  courage  of  his  wife,  was 
not  to  be  measured  by  the  flying  nature  of  his  visit  to  her.  And 
now,  on  July  15,  in  spite  of  the  Jhelum  and  Sealkote  mutinies, 
which  had  not  yet  spent  their  force,  and  which  might  well  have 
made  many  a  dry  nullah  and  many  a  saint's  tomb  that  he  passed 
on  his  way  to  be  the  lurking  place  of  an  assassin,  he  started  for 
Lahore  on  the  ordinary  mail  cart,  accompanied  by  Arthur  Brand- 
reth  only,  and  without  even  a  mounted  policeman  as  escort !  Had 
the  mutineers  only  known,  and  been  able  to  grasp  their  opportu- 
voL.  n. — 10  145 


146  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

nity  ;  had  some  well-aimed  bullet,  or  the  dagger  of  some  paradise- 
seeking  Ghazi,  found  its  way  to  John  Lawrence's  heart,  what 
would  not  have  been  the  difference  to  the  prospects  of  the  be- 
siegers on  the  distant  Ridge  ?  The  answer  to  the  question  will 
give,  in  some  measure,  the  value  of  the  man,  then  and  throughout 
the  crisis,  to  India. 

By  the  19th  he  had  reached  Lahore,  unscathed  and  in  good 
heart  ;  and  now,  in  rapid  succession,  arrived  from  day  to  day  those 
urgent  letters  from  Wilson  and  from  others  before  Delhi,  which, 
in  spite  of  the  equally  urgent  remonstrances  from  Peshawur,  he 
answered  by  sending  forth  from  his  almost  exhausted  province 
another  batch  of  reinforcements,  four  thousand  strong,  with  Nich- 
olson at  their  head.  *  We  must  support,'  he  said,  '  the  army  before 
Delhi  at  the  sacrifice  of  every  other  consideration.' 

That  Nicholson  was  at  the  head  of  the  column  was  a  sufficient 
security  that  there  would  be  no  unnecessary  delay  in  its  advance. 
His  first  act  was  characteristic  enough,  and  it  was  one  which,  in 
later  times,  his  chief  was  very  fond  of  relating.  The  Punjab  was 
badly  supplied  with  guns,  but  as  Delhi,  possibly,  wanted  them  even 
more,  the  Chief  Commissioner  and  the  General  in  Command  agreed 
to  allow  Bourchiers'  battery  to  join  the  column,  explicit  orders 
being  given  that  Dawes'  battery,  on  which  Nicholson  had  also 
cast  an  envious  eye,  should  be  left  behind,  unless  General  Wilson 
wrote  to  say  that  its  presence  was  absolutely  necessary  for  the 
siege.  Nicholson,  more  anxious,  as  it  appeared  afterwards,  to 
secure  the  presence  of  Dawes,  who  might  succeed  to  the  command 
of  the  column  if  anything  happened  to  himself,  than  of  his  battery, 
pounced  down  upon  both  at  once,  and  moved  off  with  them, 
bodily,  towards  Delhi  ! 

You  have  carried  off  (wrote  his  long-suffering  chief  on  July  28)  both 
batteries,  and  this  too  without  saying  a  word,  or  asking  leave  of  a  soul, 
General,  or  anyone  else  !  The  consequence  of  this  is  that  the  General 
(Gowan)  is  annoyed,  and  much  time  is  lost  in  writing  explanations.  No 
man  likes  to  be  quietly  placed  on  the  shelf,  and  I  am  sure  you  would 
not  like  it.  I  say  not  tliis  on  my  own  account,  but  on  that  of  the  Gen- 
eral. For  my  own  part,  I  would  be  right  glad  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  troops  or  their  movements,  unless  officers  will  act  according  to 
rule  and  system.  One's  life  is  taken  up  in  oiling  the  machine,  and  try- 
ing to  keep  things  straight.  .  .  .  Please  return  my  official  memo.,  and 
write  and  explain  to  the  General.  What  would  you  say  if  an  officer 
under  your  authority  walked  off  with  your  troops  without  a  word  ? 

Nicholson  gave  such  explanation  as  he  could,  but  the  ink  of  his 


l8S7  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  147 

apology  can  scarcely  have  been  dry  before  he  discounted  its  effect, 
and  capped  his  previous  doings  by  carrying  off  on  his  own  respon- 
sibility a  body  of  gunners  from  Phillour.  '  I  fear  you  are  incorri- 
gible,' says  John  Lawrence  on  August  4,  half,  doubtless,  in  anger, 
but  half  also  in  amusement  and  in  admiration,  *  so  I  must  leave 
you  to  your  fate.  But,  depend  on  it,  you  would  get  on  equally 
well  and  much  more  smoothly  if  you  worked  with  men  rather  than 
by  ignoring  them.'  But  John  Lawrence  was  still  willing,  if  possi- 
ble, to  meet  the  wishes  of  his  new  Brigadier-General  and  give  him 
Dawes.  *  By  the  time  Wilde  arrives,  if  the  Battery  can  be  spared, 
it  shall  go  down,  if  I  can  manage  it.  However,  we  are  very  weak, 
and  these  guns  do  assuredly  give  us  a  certain  strength.* 

Such  were  some  of  the  drawbacks  incidental  to  Nicholson's  ap- 
pointment. But  John  Lawrence  never  doubted  that  he  had  done 
right  in  appointing  him.  It  was  as  necessary  in  this  time  of  need 
to  put  arms  into  the  hands  of  those  who  could  best  wield  them, 
as  to  wrench  them,  at  all  hazards,  from  the  hands  of  those  who 
could  not  wield  them  at  all.  His  urgent  remonstrances  had  at 
length  succeeded  in  inducing  the  Governor-General  and  General 
Reed  to  supersede  Hewitt  and  Johnstone,  just  as  his  urgent  recom- 
mendations had  induced  General  Reed,  in  defiance  of  all  consid- 
erations of  military  etiquette,  to  turn  plain  Major  Nicholson  at  a 
bound  into  a  Brigadier-General.     Was  he  not  right  in  both  ? 

The  return  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  Lahore,  after  so  long  an 
absence  must  have  made  a  marked  difference  in  all  the  conditions 
of  his  daily  life.  At  Rawul  Pindi  he  had  been  almost  alone.  He 
had  been,  of  course,  in  frequent  communication  by  letter  with  men 
in  every  part  of  his  province.  But  he  had  not  enjoyed  that  daily 
friction  of  mind  with  mind  which  most  people  would  find  necessary 
if  they  are  to  put  forth  all  their  strength.  To  John  Lawrence  such 
friction,  as  the  extraordinary  energy  and  ability  displayed  in  all  his 
letters  and  orders  prove,  was  quite  unnecessary.  Like  many  other 
young  civilians  he  had  inured  himself  to  solitude — solitude  at  all 
events  as  far  as  white  faces  were  concerned — in  those  early  years 
at  Paniput  and  Gorgaon,  and  he  was  quite  able  and  willing,  if  need 
be,  to  return  to  it  in  this  his  later  life.  But  none  the  less  it  must 
have  been  refreshing  to  find  himself  again  in  the  midst  of  those 
*  pucca  trumps '  who  had  been  doing  such  excellent  service,  and 
had  relieved  him  of  all  anxiety,  as  regarded  the  centre  of  his  prov- 
ince :  Montgomery  with  his  never  ruffled  countenance  and  his  ever 
ready  promptitude  and  courage  ;  Macpherson,  his  military  secre- 
tary, on  whose  sturdy  shoulders  had  fallen  the  whole  burden  of  the 


148  •         LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

multitudinous  arrangements  for  the  raising  of  new  troops  which  was 
going  on  all  over  the  country  ;  Arthur  Roberts,  the  Commissioner, 
John  Lawrence's  old  associate  at  Delhi,  who  had  come  to  Lahore 
just  at  the  time  when  his  energetic  service  was  most  needed  there. 

Nor  had  the  services  of  the  Lahore  chiefs  been  confined  to  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  capital  or  even  to  their  own  Division.  Roberts 
had  accompanied  Nicholson  on  his  flank  march  to  the  Trimmoo 
Ghaut  while  Richard  Lawrence  had  led  a  force  to  Sealkote  after 
the  outbreak  there,  and  had  visited  with  condign  punishment  some 
of  his  own  military  police  who,  here  and  only  here,  in  the  whole 
history  of  the  Mutiny  in  the  Punjab  proved  untrue  to  their  salt ; 
and  he  was  now  marching  down  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  '  Rose- 
buds,' as  John  Lawrence  was  fond  of  calling  them,  three  thousand 
strong,  from  Jummoo  for  Delhi. 

But  meanwhile  the  Lahore  authorities  were  to  receive  a  stern 
reminder  that,  with  four  regiments  disarmed  in  their  immediate 
neighbourhood  and  with  only  a  part  of  a  single  European  regiment 
to  keep  them  in  check,  they  were  sitting  on  a  powder  magazine 
which  might,  at  any  time,  hurl  them  into  the  air.  During  a  period 
of  two  and  a  half  months  the  disarmed  regiments  had  kei)t  the 
peace,  brooding,  doubtless,  over  their  grievances,  conscious  that,  at 
any  moment,  the  act  of  a  single  individual  amongst  them  might 
involve  the  whole  body  in  ruin,  and  therefore  naturally  ready  to 
break  out  and  escape  if  they  saw  a  favourable  opportunity.  It  is  as 
unnecessary  as  it  is  unjust,  to  refrain  from  pointing  out  how  much 
there  was  to  call  for  compassion  and  allowance  in  the  condition  of 
these  poor  men,  who,  sincerely  believing  to  begin  with  that  their 
religion  was  in  danger,  had  been  disarmed  and  dishonoured  and  were 
now  swayed  hither  and  thither  by  panic  fears,  conscious  that  they 
carried  or  could  hardly  even  be  said  to  carry  their  lives  in  their 
hands.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  tone  of  too  many  Englishmen, 
at  the  time,  in  speaking  or  in  writing  of  the  Sepoys,  John  Lawrence, 
again  and  again  in  his  letters,  shows  that  he  felt  keenly  how  much 
there  was  to  be  said  in  extenuation  of  their  guilt,  and  that  he  knew 
full  well  how  many  of  them,  while  cherishing  the  best  intentions 
towards  us,  that  been  simply  hurried  away  by  the  stream.  It  was 
nothing,  in  fact,  but  the  knowledge  that  the  life  of  every  European 
depended  upon  the  promptitude  and  vigour  of  the  measures  taken, 
which  justified  to  his  mind  the  stern  severity  with  which  all  risings 
in  the  Punjab  were  put  down. 

At  last,  on  July  30,  the  long  expected  opportunity  came,  and  one 
of  the  regiments,  the  26th,  took  advantage  of  it.     They  rose,  cut 


i857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  '     149 

down  and  hacked  to  pieces  their  commanding  officer,  Major 
Spencer,  a  man  who  had  Hved  with  and  for  them  during  many  years, 
and  whom,  beyond  doubt,  the  majority  of  their  number  regarded 
with  affection  and  respect.  After  other  deeds  of  successful,  and 
more  of  attempted  murder,  they  took  themselves  off  in  a  body. 
But  partly  owing  to  a  violent  dust  cloud  which  concealed  the 
direction  they  had  taken,  and  partly  to  the  presence  of  the  three 
other  disarmed  regiments,  which,  it  was  feared,  might  follow  their 
example,  they  were  not  pursued  and  cut  to  pieces  on  the  instant  by 
the  Sikhs  and  Europeans  who  were  close  at  hand. 

We  had  (says  Sir  John  Lawrence)  a  sad  and  scandalous  affair  here 
two  days  ago.  It  appears  that  the  26th  had,  for  two  days,  been  selling' 
off  their  property,  preparatory  to  a  start.  At  eleven  a.m.  on  the  30th, 
they  were  all  ready,  and  had  cooked  their  farewell  meal.  Some  little 
excitement  attracted  attention,  and  then  Major  Spencer  walked  down 
in  \\\'~>  paijanunas  (loose  drawers)  from  his  house  close  by,  into  the  lines. 
There  he  was  joined  by  the  Quartermaster-Sergeant.  He  had  apparently 
quieted  the  men,  when  he  got  to  the  2nd  Company,  who  crowded  round 
him,  and  a  man  from  behind  laid  him  dead  by  a  blow  from  an  axe.  The 
Quartermaster-Sergeant,  the  Havildar-Major,  and  two  others  were  killed 
with  him.  The  Pundit  also  was  nearly  killed.  The  men  then  started 
right  through  the  cantonments,  and  though  seen  by  many,  with  the  Sikh 
Regiment  close  by,  panting  to  be  at  them,  nothing  was  done  !  At  last 
a  party  with  guns,  Europeans  and  Sikhs,  were  sent  out,  galloped  two  or 
three  miles,  are  said  to  have  killed  a  few  men,  and  then  came  back. 
Montgomery,  I  and  Robert,  the  Commissioner,  got  the  news  about  half 
past  two  o'clock  P.M.,  and  were  there  at  three.  We  went  out  after  them, 
and  not  seeing  the  trail,  at  a  venture,  sent  the  pursuers  towards  Umritsur, 
Hariki,  and  Hussur,  the  roads  for  the  different  ghauts  on  the  Sutlej. 
We  now  hear  that  the  men,  about  six  hundred  in  number,  after  going  a 
little  way  due  East  turned  North,  and  went  forty  miles  right  up  the 
Doab,  and  were  seen  yesterday  morning  at  a  ghaut  on  the  Ravi,  and 
are  evidently  trying  to  get  across,  and  so  on  to  the  Jummoo  territory. 

On  the  evening  of  the  day  on  which  he  wrote  this  account  he 
was  able  to  report  to  Lord  Canning  that  the  Umritsur  police  had 
'  disposed  of  '  at  least  five  out  of  the  six  hundred  mutineers.  Many 
had  been  killed  and  drowned  in  the  attempt  to  cross  the  Ravi,  and 
upwards  of  two  hundred  and  forty  who  had  been  captured  had 
been  shot  on  the  following  morning. 

Thus  the  great  danger  had  passed  by.  The  Punjab  Government, 
— it  must  be  borne  in  mind,  if  we  are  to  weigh  the  whole  circum- 
stances of  the  case  fairly — was,  at  this  moment,  literally  in  extrem- 
ity.    The  last  and   greatest  of  its  succours  had  been  sent  off,  and 


150  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

Nicholson,  who,  under  somewhat  similar  circumstances,  had  given 
a  short  shrift  to  the  Sealkote  mutineers,  was  now,  as  every  malcon- 
tent knew  well,  far  away  at  Umballa  with  his  face  set  steadfastly 
for  Delhi.  The  escape  of  so  large  a  body  of  mutineers  might, 
under  such  circumstances,  have  well  caused  a  general  rising  among 
the  numerous  disarmed  regiments  in  the  Punjab,  and  would  cer- 
tainly have  induced  the  three  regiments  at  Mean  Meer  to  follow 
their  example.  Terrible  therefore  as  was  the  retribution  and  de- 
plorable as  was  the  sacrifice  of  human  life,  I  do  not  think  that 
we  can  fairly  condemn  the  act  itself.  And  that  such  was  Sir  John 
Lawrence's  own  feeling,  who,  as  I  have  shown  repeatedly,  was  never 
for  unnecessary  severity,  is  evident  from  the  hasty  note  which  he 
wrote  off  on  the  first  receipt  of  the  telegram  to  the  chief  actor  in 
the  tragedy,  and  which  was  afterwards  quoted  by  that  actor  for  a 
widely  different  purpose.  Its  date,  it  should  be  observed,  is  August 
2,  when  no  details  were  known  to  him  over  and  above  the  bare 
facts  which  he  had  reported  to  Lord  Canning. 

My  dear  Cooper, — I  congratulate  you  on  your  success  against  the  26th 
Native  Infantry.  You  and  your  police  acted  with  much  energy  and  spirit, 
and  deserve  well  of  the  State.  I  trust  the  fate  of  these  Sepoys  will  operate 
as  a  warning  to  others.  Every  effort  should  be  exerted  to  glean  up  those 
who  are  yet  at  large. 

The  fact  that  Lord  Canning  as  well  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  consid- 
ered that,  under  the  circumstances,  the  execution  was  necessary, 
and  that  their  opinion  was  endorsed,  many  months  afterwards,  by 
so  cool-headed  a  man  as  Lord  Stanley,  when  the  matter  came  before 
Parliament,  and  was  sharply  criticised  there,  will  probably  carry  a 
sad  conviction  to  most  minds.  But  it  is  otherwise  with  the  details 
of  the  execution  as  they  began  slowly  to  ooze  out  and  as  they  were 
reported  in  terms  of  glowing  exultation  by  the  executioner  himself. 
An  officer  who  steels  his  heart  in  order  to  perform  a  painful  but 
absolutely  necessary  public  duty  is  entitled  to  the  compassion,  the 
sympathy,  and  the  support  of  all  right-thinking  men.  But  when  the 
deed  is  done  with  evident  satisfaction  and  when  its  most  repulsive 
details  are  recorded  at  a  later  period  and  in  cold  blood  with  ribald 
flippancy,  then  our  feelings  of  sympathy  and  compassion  are  turned 
into  those  of  loathing  and  disgust.  It  is  an  unsavoury  subject  over 
which  I  would  gladly  draw  a  veil.  But  England  in  her  world-wide 
rule  is  brought  into  contact  with  so  many  weaker  races,  her  officers 
may  be  so  often  tempted  in  the  hateful  pride  of  blood,  of  colour,  or 
of  empire  to  forget  that  the  obligations  of  humanity  are  thereby  not 


i857  SIEGE    AND    CAPTURE    OF    DELHI.  151 

weakened  but  intensified  ;  proceedings  similar  in  kind  to  those  of 
Cooper  have  taken  place,  at  so  much  later  a  date,  in  Jamaica,  and 
have  been  recorded  by  the  actors  in  strains  of  levity  so  similar,  that 
I  think  it  well  to  let  the  chief  actor  in  the  scene  tell  the  story,  in 
great  part,  for  himself,  and  so,  perchance,  to  make  such  conduct 
less  possible  for  the  future. 

The  main  body  of  the  mutineers  had  on  the  arrival  of  Cooper  at 
the  scene  of  action,  after  their  forty  miles  flight  and  a  struggle  of 
many  hours  with  the  villagers  on  the  river,  swum  or  floated  on 
pieces  of  wood  to  an  island  in  the  Ravi  about  a  mile  from  the 
shore,  where  they  '  might  be  descried  crouching  like  a  brood  of 
wild  fowl. ' 

It  remained  (says  Cooper  in  a  book  which  was  not  published  till  the 
following  year,  and  is  entitled  '  The  Crisis  in  the  Punjab ')  to  capture 
this  body,  and,  having  done  so,  to  execute  condign  punishment  at  once. 
.  .  .  There  were  but  two  boats,  both  rickety,  and  the  boatmen  unskilled. 
.  .  .  They  put  off  with  about  thirty  sowars  in  each,  in  high  spirits.  The 
boats  straggled  a  little,  but  managed  to  reach  the  island  in  about  twenty 
minutes.  It  was  a  long  inhospitable  patch,  with  tall  grass  ;  a  most  un- 
desirable place  to  bivouac  on  for  the  night  with  a  rising  tide,  especially 
if  wet,  dispirited,  hungry,  without  food,  fire,  or  dry  clothing.  The  sun 
was  setting  in  golden  splendour,  and  as  the  doomed  men  with  joined 
palms  crowded  down  to  the  shore  on  the  approach  of  the  boats,  one  side 
of  which  bristled  with  about  sixty  muskets,  besides  sundry  revolvers  and 
pistols,  their  long  shadows  were  flung  far  athwart  the  gleaming  waters. 
In  utter  despair  forty  or  fifty  dashed  into  the  stream  and  disappeared, 
rose  at  a  distance,  and  were  borne  away  into  the  increasing  gloom. 

An  order  given  not  to  fire  at  the  heads  of  the  drowning  men 
seems  to  have  given  the  rest  of  the  Sepoys  what  Cooper  calls  the 
*  insane  idea  that  they  were  going  to  be  tried  by  court  martial  after 
some  luxurious  refreshment,'  and  accordingly  they  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  bound  and  ferried  across  in  detachments.  On  reaching 
the  shore  they  were  more  tightly  bound,  their  decorations  and  neck- 
laces ignominiously  cut  off,  and  they  were  ordered  to  proceed,  in 
their  exhausted  condition,  by  a  road  knee  deep  in  water,  to  the 
police  station  six  miles  off,  at  Ujnalla.  Each  successive  'invoice,' 
as  Cooper  calls  it,  was  safely  landed  under  precautions  which  sug- 
gested to  his  mind  the  fable  of  the  fox,  the  geese,  and  the  peck  of 
oats,  and  called  forth  peals  of  laughter  among  the  Sikh  sowars  as 
he  explained  to  them  the  parallel. 

It  was  near  midnight  before  all  were  safely  lodged  in  the  police  sta- 
tion.    A  drizzling  rain  coming  on,  prevented  the  commencement  of  the 


152  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

execution,  so  a  rest  until  daybreak  was  announced.  Before  dawn 
another  batch  of  sixty-six  was  brought  in,  and  as  the  police  station  was 
then  nearly  full,  they  were  ushered  into  a  large  round  tower  or  bastion. 

Previously  to  his  departure  with  the  pursuing  party  from  Umritsur, 
the  Deputy  Commissioner  (Cooper  himseli)  had  ordered  out  a  large 
supply  of  rope,  in  case  the  numbers  captured  were  few  enough  for 
hanging — trees  being  scarce — and  also  a  reserve  of  fifty  Sikh  levies  for 
a  firing  party,  in  case  of  the  numbers  demanding  wholesale  execution  ; 
as  also  to  be  of  use  as  a  reserve  in  case  of  a  fight  on  the  island.  So 
eager  were  the  Sikhs  that  they  marched  straight  on  end,  and  he  met 
them  half-way,  twenty-three  miles  between  the  river  and  the  police  sta- 
tion, on  his  journey  back  in  charge  of  the  prisoners,  the  total  number  of 
which,  when  the  execution  commenced,  amounted  to  282  of  all  ranks, 
besides  numbers  of  camp-followers,  who  were  left  to  be  taken  care  of  by 
the  villagers. 

As  fortune  would  have  it,  again  favouring  audacity,  a  deep  dry  well 
was  discovered  within  one  hundred  yards  of  the  police  station,  and  its 
presence  furnished  a  convenient  solution  as  to  the  one  remaining  diffi- 
culty, which  was  of  sanitary  consideration,  the  disposal  of  the  corpses 
of  the  dishonoured  soldiers. 

The  climax  of  fortunate  coincidences  seemed  to  have  arrived  when  it 
was  remembered  that  August  i  was  the  anniversary  of  the  great  Mo- 
hammedan sacrificial  festival  of  the  Bukra  Eed.  A  capital  excuse  was 
thus  afforded  to  permit  the  Hindustani  Mussulman  horsemen  to  return 
to  celebrate  it  at  Umritsur  ;  while  the  single  Christian,  unembarrassed 
by  their  presence,  and  aided  by  the  faithful  Sikhs,  might  perform  a  cer- 
emonial sacrifice  of  a  different  nature — and  the  nature  of  which  they 
had  not  been  made  aware — on  the  same  morrow.  When  that  morrow 
dawned,  sentries  were  placed  round  the  town  to  prevent  the  egress  of 
sight-seers.  The  officials  were  called  ;  and  they  were  made  aware  of 
the  character  of  the  spectacle  they  were  about  to  witness. 

Ten  by  ten  the  Sepoys  were  called  forth.  Their  names  having  been 
taken  down  in  succession,  they  were  pinioned,  linked  together,  and 
marched  to  execution,  a  firing  party  being  in  readiness.  Every  phase 
of  deportment  was  manifested  by  the  doomed  men,  after  the  sullen  firing 
of  volleys  of  distant  musketry  forced  the  conviction  of  inevitable  death  ; 
astonishment,  rage,  frantic  despair,  the  most  stoic  calmness.   .  .  . 

About  a  hundred  and  fifty  having  been  executed,  one  of  the  execution- 
ers swooned  away — he  was  the  oldest  of  the  firing  party — and  a  little 
respite  was  allowed.  Then  proceeding,  the  number  had  arrived  at  two 
hundred  and  thirty-seven,  when  the  District  officer  was  informed  that 
the  remainder  refused  to  come  out  of  the  bastion,  where  they  had  been 
imprisoned  temporarily  a  few  hours  before.  Expecting  a  rush  and  re- 
sistance, preparations  were  made  against  escape.  But  little  expectation 
was  entertained  of  the  real  and  awful  fate  which  had  fallen  on  the  re- 
mainder of  the  mutineers  ;  they  had  anticipated  by  a  few  short  hours 
their  doom.     The  doors  were  opened,  and  behold  !  they  were  nearly  all 


i857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF   DELHI.  153 

dead  !  Unconsciously  the  tragedy  of  Holwell's  Black  Hole  had  been  re- 
enacted.  No  cries  had  been  heard  during  the  night,  in  consequence  of 
the  hubbub,  tumult  and  shouting  of  the  crowds  of  horsemen,  police, 
tehsil  guards,  and  excited  villagers.  Forty-five  bodies,  dead  from  fright, 
exhaustion,  fatigue,  heat,  and  partial  suffocation,  were  dragged  into  light, 
and  consigned,  in  common  with  all  the  other  bodies,  into  one  common 
pit  by  the  hands  of  the  village  sweepers.  ,   .   . 

There  is  a  well  at  Cawnpore  (so  the  writer  triumphantly  wiuds  up  his 
sickening  narrative),  but  there  is  also  one  at  Ujnalla. 

In  other  words,  Cooper  plumes  himself  on  having  managed  to 
combine  into  one  time  and  place  some  of  the  worst  horrors  of  the 
two  most  horrible  tragedies  which  have  ever  befallen  our  country- 
men in  the  East — the  Black  Hole  at  Calcutta  and  the  Well  at 
Cawnpore.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  he  did  not 
slaughter  women  and  children,  and  that  he  only  left  the  harmless 
multitude  of  camp-followers,  as  he  euphemistically  expresses  it,  *  to 
the  care  of  the  Sikh  villagers,'  but  I  am  not  so  sure,  when  we  bear 
in  mind  the  enormous  differences  of  education,  of  civilisation,  and 
of  religion,  between  Suraja  Dovvla  and  Frederick  Cooper  that  the 
advantage  is  altogether  on  the  side  of  the  Englishman  and  the 
Christian.  Whatever  difference  of  opinion  there  may  be  as  to  the 
necessity  of  the  summary  and  sweeping  punishment,  there  can  be 
no  question  at  all  as  to  the  way  in  which  it  was  recorded.  '  I 
hope,'  says  Lord  Canning  in  his  Minute  on  the  services  of  the  civil 
officers,  '  that  Mr.  Cooper  will  be  judged  by  his  acts  done  under 
stern  necessity  rather  than  by  his  own  narrative  of  them.'  '  That 
nauseous  dispatch,'  were  the  emphatic  words  with  which  Lord  Law- 
rence always,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  referred  to  the  first  and  simpler 
account  in  which  Cooper  had  himself  blazoned  his  own  proceed- 
ings, and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  better  epithet. 

The  rising  at  Lahore  was  followed  by  similar  risings  of  disarmed 
regiments  at  two  other  important  stations  in  the  Punjab,  the  whole 
clearly  showing,  if  proof  was  needed,  in  how  perilous  a  condition 
the  denuded  province  lay,  and  how  absolutely  necessary  it  was,  if 
the  Punjab  and  India  were  to  stand,  that  Delhi  must  soon  fall.  At 
Ferozepore  it  had  been  thought  necessary  after  the  outbreaks  at 
Jhelum  and  Sealkote  to  dismount  and  disarm  the  loth  Cavalry,  a 
regiment  which  up  to  that  time  had  been  conspicuous  for  its 
fidelity,  and  which  still  continued  to  hope,  in  its  humbled  condition, 
that  the  day  would  come  when  it  would  be  trusted  again.  The 
horses  of  the  men  had  been  already  drawn  off  in  detachments  to 
supply  the  needs  of  the  Artillery  and  of  the  Jummoo  troops  who 


154  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

were  starting  for  Delhi  ;  and  when,  on  August  14,  the  order  came 
to  withdraw  all  that  were  left,  the  whole  regiment  rose,  and,  carry- 
ing off  all  the  animals  on  which  they  could  lay  their  hands,  left  for 
Delhi.  No  effectual  pursuit  was  organised,  and  the  greater  part  of 
the  regiment  got  off  through  Hansi  to  their  destination. 

The  indignation  of  the  Chief  Commissioner  at  what  he  thought  to 
be  gross  mismanagement  on  the  part  of  the  Brigadier  in  command 
was  extreme. 

You  will  have  heard  (he  says  to  Edwardes)  of  the  outbreak  of  the  loth 
Cavalry.  They  attempted  to  seize  the  guns  when  the  men  were  at  din- 
ner. One  gunner  and  Dr.  Nelson,  the  veterinary  surgeon,  were  killed, 
and  several  men  wounded.  The  Brigadier  'cleared  the  cantonment' 
of  the  mutineers,  according  to  military  parlance,  which  means  in  plain 
English  that  he  allowed  them  all  to  escape  !  I  hear  that  one  young  lady 
got  a  slash  from  a  sword  over  her  leg  as  she  tried  to  get  into  the  fort. 
The  men,  I  suspect,  had  concealed  tulwars  in  their  lines.  Marsden  and 
the  police  have  gone  after  the  rascals.  Show  this  to  General  Cotton. 
Too  great  precautions  cannot  be  adopted.  These  fellows  watch  every 
movement,  every  act,  and  are  ready  to  take  advantage  of  the  slightest 
neglect.  I  should  not  be  in  the  least  surprised  if  it  turns  out  that  no 
officer  was  present  with  the  guns. 

Again,  on  August  28,  he  writes  to  Edwardes  : — 

What  think  you  ?  Brigadier  Innes,  failing  to  seize  or  kill  the  muti- 
neers of  the  loth  Light  Cavalry,  let  fly  among  the  Government  horses 
picketed  under  the  guns  of  the  fort  at  Ferozepore,  and  killed  nearly  one 
hundred.     He  will  probably  be  knighted  for  this  exploit ! 

The  unfortunate  Brigadier  was  not  knighted  but  was  superseded. 
It  is  not  however  unpleasant  to  record  that  the  hasty  verdict  passed 
on  him  in  a  time  of  peril  was  reversed  by  the  deliberate  judgment 
arrived  at  in  the  calm  which  followed,  and  a  brave  officer  was  re- 
stored to  his  duties. 

The  other  outbreak  took  place  at  Peshawur,  and  with  a  very  dif- 
ferent result.  If  Cotton  or  Edwardes  or  James  had  gone  to  sleep 
for  a  moment  at  their  posts  the  awakening  would  have  indeed  been 
a  rough  one.  They  worked  and  watched  together  as  one  man,  and 
the  civilians  were  as  ready  for  any  deed  of  military  daring  as  the 
military  themselves.  In  the  month  of  July,  for  instance,  Fort 
Mackeson,  near  the  entrance  of  the  Kohat  Pass,  had  been  saved 
from  the  combined  attack  of  traitorous  Sepoys  from  within,  and  of 
Afridis  from  without,  by  the  skill  and  courage  of  Edwardes  ;  while 
Norinji,  a  village  beyond  our  frontier  in  the  Eusofzye  country,  where 


l8S7  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF   DELHI.  155 

the  Ghazis  were  mustering  in  great  force  and  proclaiming  a  holy 
war,  was  cleared  of  the  enemy  by  similar  energy  on  the  part  of 
James.  In  August  there  were  fewer  troubles,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  many  of  the  most  villainous  of  the  borderers  had  been  enlisted 
in  our  service.  But  there  was  the  far  greater  danger  to  which 
Lawrence  had  looked  forward  with  apprehension  from  the  begin- 
ning, the  autumnal  fever.  If  the  Foorbeas  suffered  much  by  it  the 
Europeans  were  sure  to  suffer  more,  and  disease  had  already  begun 
to  do  its  deadly  work  when  the  rumour  spread  that  large  quantities 
of  arms  were  being  purchased  and  were,  even  then,  lying  hid  within 
the  lines  of  the  three  disarmed  regiments.  The  whole,  therefore, 
might  start  up,  at  any  moment,  ready  armed,  and  be  joined  by  the 
two  cavalry  regiments  which  had  not  been  compelled  to  go  through 
the  form  of  disarmament. 

It  was  no  time  for  parleying  with  mutiny.  A  search  was  ordered 
in  the  lines  of  the  51st  on  the  morning  of  August  25,  and  while  the 
young  Sikh  and  Afghan  levies  were  engnged  in  the  congenial  task 
of  looting  the  huts  of  their  hereditary  foes,  the  whole  regiment 
'rose  as  one  man,'  and,  after  fighting  bravely  with  such  weapons 
as  came  to  hand,  were  overpowered  and  put  to  flight.  The  long 
pursuit  from  Peshawur  to  Jumrood  was  one  grand  battue,  in  which 
no  quarter  was  either  asked  or  granted  ;  and  when,  forty-eight 
hours  afterwards,  the  guns  on  the  parade  ground  had  done  their 
grim  work  with  such  stragglers  as  had  been  picked  up  when  the 
pursuit  was  over,  the  whole  regiment,  eight  hundred  and  seventy 
strong — a  regiment  with  the  proud  names  of  Punniar,  Punjab, 
Mooltan,  and  Gujerat  inscribed  upon  its  colours — had  ceased  to 
exist. 

Edwardes'  hurried  letters  to  John  Lawrence  on  the  subject  are 
terribly  graphic  and  describe,  I  am  thankful  to  say,  the  last  horrible 
scene  of  the  kind  which  it  will  be  my  duty  to  record.  They  differ 
not  only  in  degree  but  in  kind  from  the  letters  of  Cooper  to  which 
I  have  just  referred,  but  they  make  it  painfully  evident  how,  amidst 
the  passions  and  the  panic  of  the  fierce  struggle  for  life,  some,  even 
of  the  kindest-hearted  Englishmen,  were  brought  to  look  with  in- 
difference or  even  satisfaction  on  scenes  of  wholesale  bloodshed 
which,  at  any  earlier  or  later  period  of  their  lives,  would  have  filled 
them  with  horror  and  disgust. 

Peshawur  :  August  23,  1857. 

My  clear  John, — I  sent  you  a  telegraph  just  now  al)out  the  51st  Native 
Infantry,  but  may  as  well  tell  you  more  about  it.  For  some  clays  there 
has  been   uneasiness  in  the  lines,  and  rumours  of  concealed  arms  and 


156  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

ammunition,  and  the  General  was  making  up  2,000  leg-irons  on  specu- 
lation. To-day  he  searched  the  lines,  and  found  a  good  deal  of  ammu- 
nition but  no  arms,  which  were  probably  concealed.  He  ordered  the 
Pandies  into  camp  on  the  European  Parades.  The  51st  Native  Infantry, 
not  liking  this  separation  from  their  lines,  made  a  rush  on  the  arms  of 
the  new  Sikh  Corps  while  Khalsa  was  at  dinner.  Khalsa  dropped- 
his  curry,  and  went  in  for  victory,  and  killed  fifty,  it  was  thought,  on  the 
spot.  The  51st  then  bolted  to  the  country,  and  pursuit  was  instant  in 
every  direction.  The  cantonment  arrangements  were  capital,  and  no 
confusion.  The  Chiefs,  &c.,  and  new  levies,  all  promptly  ready,  and  all 
very  satisfactory  as  to  feeling.  The  other  corps  stood  fast,  and  all  went  off 
in  a  couple  of  hours.  James  is  still  out  in  pursuit  with  a  troop  of  Mooltans. 
I  hope  I  shall  be  none  the  worse  for  a  small  tour  I  made,  but  the  sun 
is  terribly  hot  in  middle  day  now.  There  was  no  one  wounded,  I  believe, 
on  our  side.  Bartlett  and  another  officer  were  driven  into  a  pond  by  the 
Pandies,  who  tried  to  drown  them,  but  did  not  succeed.  Drumhead 
courts-martial  going  on  now.  This  simplifies  matters  greatly.  One 
corps  is  got  rid  of,  and  we  shall  probably  put  another  in  irons.  Good- 
bye, 

Yours  affectionately, 

Herbert  B.  Edwardes. 

P. S.— James  just  come  back,  nearly  melted,  followed  the  Pandies  fif- 
teen miles,  killed  every  man,  no  prisoners  taken  by  his  party.  Colonel 
Kyle  with  another  pursuit  has  killed  about  one  hundred,  and  prisonered 
sixty — great  clearance. 

And  again  on  the  31st  he  writes  : — 

Almost  all  the  51st  Native  Infantry  have  been  picked  up  and  shot. 
More  than  seven  hundred  have  been  already  killed.  Four  or  five  got  to 
Khuddum  in  the  Khyber,  where  the  Hukikheyl  said  they  would  let  them 
go  to  Cabul  as  Mussulmans,  but  not  as  Hindus  ;  so  they  were  converted 
on  the  spot. 

While  these  ghastly  scenes  were  being  witnessed  in  the  outlying 
districts  of  his  province,  the  Chief  Commissioner's  work  never  slack- 
ened for  a  moment.  His  correspondence,  indeed,  seems  to  grow  in 
interest  and  importance,  as  he  finds  himself  better  able,  now  that 
his  last  reinforcements  have  been  sent  to  the  front,  to  look  forward 
to  the  more  congenial  work  of  pacification  and  reconstruction 
which  was  to  follow  the  fall  of  Delhi. 

On  August  5,  he  wrote  to  William  Muir — a  man  who  was  then  a 
stranger  to  him,  but  was,  afterwards,  to  become  one  of  his  inti- 
mate friends,  and  to  fill  one  of  the  most  responsible  posts  in  his 
Viceregal  Government — the  first  of  a  series  of  important  letters, 
.which  after  discussing  Havelock's  movements  winds  up  in  words 


i857  SIEGE  AND    CAPTURE   OF   DELHI.  157 

which  acquire  a  melancholy  interest  when  we  cast  our  eyes  onwards 
to  the  letters  of  the  following  day.  *  If  you  can  hear  any  authentic 
news  from  Lucknow  kindly  send  me  word.  Send  my  brother  also 
a  copy  of  this  letter.'  'Authentic  news'  from  Lucknow  did  come 
on  the  morrow,  and  told  him  that  his  noble-hearted  brother  was  no 
more.  He  had  died  a  soldier's  death — the  death  which,  perhaps, 
of  all  others  he  would  have  most  coveted — while  defending  against 
desperate  odds  the  Residency  of  his  Capital. 

In  time  of  war  it  often  happens  that  the  best  and  ablest  of  sol- 
diers, the  man  whose  name  has  been  on  everybody's  lips,  and  who 
has  managed  to  wind  himself  round  everybody's  heart,  is  taken 
away,  leaving  little  more  than  a  mere  passing  impression  behind 
him.  A  few  prayers  at  the  grave,  a  few  shovelsful  of  earth,  a  few 
tears  from  the  faithful  few — and,  out  of  sight,  is  out  of  mind  !  The 
dead  are  forgotten  in  the  fierce  struggle  for  life  among  the  living. 
No  man  had  been  more  beloved  in  the  camp  before  Delhi  than  Sir 
Henry  Barnard,  and  his  death  by  cholera  called  forth  an  outburst 
of  lamentation  and  appreciative  eulogy  which  has  been  duly  re- 
corded by  Sir  John  Kaye.  But,  I  find  in  a  letter  of  Neville  Cham- 
berlain, written  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  only  two  days  after  the  grave 
had  closed  over  him,  the  bitter  words,  '  The  troops  appear  to  have 
already  forgotten  poor  Barnard  almost  entirely.  So  much  for  the 
bubble  reputation  ! ' 

Nor  is  it  only  in  time  of  war  that  a  great  and  good  man  dies  and 
is  soon  forgotten.  For  the  few  days  indeed  which  follow  his  death 
the  newspapers  are  full  of  him,  and  his  name  is  on  everybody's  lips  ; 
more,  much  more,  perhaps,  than  it  had  ever  been  in  his  life-time. 
But  in  the  feverish  activity,  the  hurry  and  the  flurry,  the  breathless 
race  for  wealth,  the  constant  straining  after  that  which  we  have 
not,  the  life  at  high  pressure,  which  are  the  chief  characteristics  of 
our  days,  he  too,  is  soon  as  though  he  had  never  been.  The  gap 
which  he  has  left  is  filled  up  or  bridged  over,  somehow,  by  lesser 
men  ;  and  it  is  only  the  faithful  few  who  feel  that,  really,  it  has  not 
been  filled  up  or  bridged  over  at  all. 

But  not  in  this  wise — though  in  the  midst  of  a  struggle  for  empire 
and  for  life,  the  like  to  which  has  rarely  taxed  the  energies  of  Eng- 
lishmen— was  the  passing  away  of  Henry  Lawrence,  and  not  such 
the  nature  of  the  impression  which  he  had  made  on  those  who  knew 
him  well.  At  Delhi  and  at  Lahore,  in  Rajpootana  and  in  Huzara, 
at  Peshawur  and  at  Mooltan  were  to  be  found  men,  the  foremost  in 
council  and  in  the  field,  the  men  on  whom  all  India  was  then  hang- 
ing, whom  he  had  inspired  by  his  noble  example,  and  had  bound  to 


158  LIP^E   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

himself  by  ties  of  affection  and  respect  which  death  could  only 
rivet  more  indissolubly.  They  worked  on  indeed,  without  stint  or 
stay,  for  the  common  safety,  as  he  would  have  wished  them  to  have 
done,  even  when  the  chilling  news  first  came.  But  they  did  so, 
henceforward,  with  leaden  hearts.  For  they  felt — and  I  am  told 
that  the  feeling  often  found  expression  in  words — as  if  India  could 
only  be  half  saved,  now  that  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  was  no  more  ! 
'  The  fall  of  Delhi,'  says  Herbert  Edwardes  in  writing  to  John 
Lawrence  some  six  weeks  later  when  another  great  name  had  been 
added  to  the  dead,  *  has  happened  at  the  critical  moment  for  the 
Punjab.  Alas,  what  has  it  cost  us  !  I  feel  as  if,  at  Lucknow  and 
Delhi,  I  had  lost  the  father  and  the  brother  of  my  public  life. 
Never  again  can  India  be  the  home  to  me  that  it  has  been  for 
the  last  ten  years.' 

*It  has  indeed  been  a  grievous  calamity  to  us  all,' says  John 
Lawrence  in  his  reply.  '  There  is  no  man  in  India,  who  perhaps 
at  this  time,  could  not  have  been  better  spared.  The  blow  came 
like  a  clap  of  thunder  upon  us.  ...  I  believe  he  has  not  left  an 
abler  or  a  better  soldier  behind  him.  His  loss,  just  now,  will  be  a 
iiational  calamity.' 

To  the  Punjab  indeed  Henry  Lawrence — all  of  him  that  could 
ever  die— had  been  dead  for  five  years  past.  It  had  been  his  lot 
to  witness,  as  it  were,  his  own  death  and  his  own  funeral  procession 
on  that  gloomy  day  in  February,  1853,  when,  followed  by  a  long 
train  of  faithful  mourners,  native  and  European,  he  passed  from  the 
country  of  his  choice  into  the  chill  outer  world.  With  that  day 
the  bitterness  of  death  for  him  was  past.  But  all  of  him  that  could 
live  was  living  on,  even  after  the  bursting  shell  had  done  its  work 
at  Lucknow,  and  much  of  it  is  living  to  this  day  in  India,  in  the 
hearts  of  those  whom  he  had  inspired  with  his  spirit,  and  who  were 
and  who  are  still  carrying  on  his  work.  For  the  noble  fabric  of 
government  which  it  had  been  the  lot  of  Henry  and  John  Lawrence 
together  to  found  and  foster  in  much  tribulation  of  spirit  ;  and  then 
of  John,  single-handed,  to  bring  to  maturity,  to  build  up  and  to 
consolidate,  was,  in  truth,  the  resultant  of  the  great  and  often 
antagonistic  qualities  of  both.  I  have  already  pointed  out  how, 
even  in  matters  wherein  they  most  differed,  John  had  gravitated 
slowly  towards  the  poHcy  of  Henry,  when  once  the  spirit  of  mutual 
antagonism  was  removed.  And  in  the  province  which  was  now 
weathering  the  storm  and  was  to  prove  the  sheet-anchor  of  the 
whole  of  India,  the  fidelity  of  the  great  Sirdars,  who  raised  troops 
of  cavalry  in  our  defence  or  volunteered  for  service  before  Delhi, 


i8S7  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  1 59 

may  be  regarded  as  a  special  tribute  rendered  to  the  memory  of 
Henry  Lawrence,  just  as  the  contentment  and  well-being  of  the 
masses  may  be  put  down  to  John. 

The  simple  tombstone  erected  over  the  grave  of  Henry  Lawrence, 
in  front  of  the  Residency  which  he  had  held  till  death,  bears  the 
inscription  suggested  by  himself,  '  Here  lies  Henry  Lawrence,  who 
tried  to  do  his  duty.'  It  is  the  epitome  of  his  life.  Some  years 
afterwards,  when  his  younger  brother  returned  as  Governor-General 
to  India,  he  visited  the  sacred  spot  ;  and  I  have  been  told  that  the 
expression  on  his  weather-beaten  countenance,  as  he  stood  beside 
the  grave  in  silence,  was  a  sight  never  to  be  forgotten  by  those  who 
witnessed  it. 

There  did  a  thousand  memories  crowd  upon  him, 
Unspeakable  for  sadness. 

But  with  his  regret  for  the  misunderstandings  which  had  never  been 
quite  cleared  up,  and  the  heart-burnings  which  had  never  been 
quite  healed  over  on  this  side  the  grave,  there  must  have  been  a 
glow  of  noble  pride  in  the  work  which  they  had  yet  managed  to  do 
together,  as  well  as  in  the  life  which  had  been  lived,  and  in  the 
death  which  had  been  died,  by  him  who  slept  below. 
Now,  he  too,  has  passed  away 

To  where  beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace, 

to  the  region  wherein,  if  we  can  feel  sure  of  anything  concerning 
it,  we  may  feel  sure  of  this,  that  the  discords  of  such  noble  souls 
will  be  found  to  be  but  parts  of  higher  harmonies.  His  body  rests 
in  the  vast  Abbey,  separated  from  his  brother's  by  the  breadth  of 
a  quarter  of  the  world.  And  it  was  suggested,  not  inappropriately, 
by  one  whose  thoughts  leapt  back  to  the  hurried  funeral  of  Sir 
Henry  Lawrence  beneath  storms  of  shot  and  shell,  and  to  the 
simple  gravestone  at  Lucknow,  that  the  inscription  upon  Lord 
Lawrence's  tomb  should  be  the  counterpart  of  that  of  his  brother 
except  that  being  written  for  him  instead  of  by  him,  it  might  tell 
the  truth  more  freely,  '  Here  lies  John  Lawrence,  who  did  his  duty 
to  the  last.' 

The  characters  and  careers  of  the  two  brothers  are  widely  differ- 
ent. But  there  is  still  a  likeness  in  the  difference.  For  they  had 
the  same  noble  aims,  the  same  disinterestedness,  the  same  love  to 
the  people  of  India,  the  same  absolute  devotion  to  duty.  Which 
of  the  two  rendered  the  nobler  service  to  the  State  it  would  be 
difificult  to  say.     But  it  is  not  difficult  to  say — and  that,  too,  with- 


l6o  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

out  tlirowing  a  veil  over  the  faults  of  either — that,  taking  them  both 
together,  the  chivalry,  the  generosity,  the  sympathy  of  the  one,  the 
strength,  the  judgment,  the  magnanimity  of  the  other,  the  name  of 
Lawrence  may,  now  and  for  ever,  present  to  the  people  of  India 
the  noblest  impersonation  of  English  rule,  a  rule  unselfish  and  un- 
aggressive, benevolent  and  energetic,  wise  and  just. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  had  sent  off  the  last  man  from  the  Punjab. 
But  he  was  not  yet  content  to  rest,  Nicholson's  column  was  nearing 
Delhi,  and  Dawes'  battery  was  following  hard  behind.  But  the 
ball  might  still  be  kept  rolling  from  Kashmere.  Runbeer  had  suc- 
ceeded Golab  ;  and,  if  the  Chief  Commissioner  could  manage  it, 
he  was  to  succeed  also  to  all  his  father's  obligations.  Lieutenant 
Urmston,  who  had  been  Assistant  Commissioner  at  Peshawur,  hap- 
pened, during  the  Mutiny,  to  be  in  Kashmere,  on  a  kind  of  sick 
leave,  as  the  redoubtable  Nicholson  had  been  before  him.  On 
him,  therefore,  naturally  fell  the  preliminary  negotiations  with 
Golab  and  his  son  ;  and  the  result  was  that  he  strongly  advised 
Lawrence,  for  the  omen's  sake,  to  accept  the  proffered  aid.  Golab 
was  much  too  astute,  he  thought,  not  to  be  true  to  us.  Early  in 
the  Mutiny  the  Kashmere  ruler  had  had  an  interview  with  Urmston, 
on  a  raft  moored  in  the  middle  of  a  river,  when  pointing  to  a  cloud, 
which  just  then  happened  to  be  passing  over  the  sun,  '  the  Mutiny,' 
he  said,  'will  be  just  like  that  fleeting  cloud.'  But  the  whole 
burden  of  the  arrangements  for  sending  down  the  Contingent  to 
Delhi,  and  the  full  responsibility  for  doing  so  fell  on  Sir  John  Law- 
rence. He  had  first  to  convince  himself  that  the  troops  were  fairly 
trustworthy,  and  that  they  would  be  able  to  do  respectable  work. 
And  then  he  had  the  still  harder  task  of  persuading  General  Wilson 
not  to  render  them  useless  by  putting  them  to  duties  which  they  could 
not  perform,  or  positively  harmful  by  showing  his  suspicions  of  them. 

General  Wilson's  letter  (he  says  to  Eclwardes)  does  not  give  me  a  fa- 
vourable idea  of  his  capacity  or  fitness  for  the  post.  First  it  was  said, 
'Send  the  Jummoo  troops;'  then,  'We  will  not  have  them;'  then, 
'Send  them,  by  all  means  ;  let  them  come  quickly  ;'  and  now  they  begin 
to  hedge.     I  feel  rather  sick  of  such  vacillation. 

To  Wilson  himself  he  says  : — 

So  far  as  I  have  the  means  of  judging,  I  consider  that  the  Jummoo 
troops  are  trustworthy.  I  myself  would  trust  them  were  I  in  your 
place,  so  long  as  I  had  no  reason  to  do  otherwise.  I  think  that  unless 
the  officers  with  them  are  wilfully  blind,  or  place  a  stupid  confidence  in 
them,  they  will  be  able  to  form  a  fair  and,  indeed,  a  just  judgment  as  to 


i857  SIEGE    AND    CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  l6l 

their  merits  by  the  time  the  force  gets  to  Umballa.  If,  by  that  time,  my 
brother  has  no  reason  for  distrusting  them,  I  would  say,  by  all  means, 
have  them  sent  on  to  Delhi,  and  let  them  aid  in  the  attack.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  finds  grounds  for  doubt,  I  would  send  them  over  to 
Meerut  to  put  down  rebellion  and  sedition.  My  own  impression  is  that 
they  will  behave  well.  They  are  all  Hillmen  who  have  no  sympathy 
with  the  Poorbeas. 

And  then,  thinking  that  he  might  be  able  to  form  a  more  accu- 
rate judgment  of  their  capabilities,  and  confirm  them  in  their 
fidelity  by  a  personal  interview,  he  set  out  for  the  purpose,  in  the 
middle  of  all  his  other  work,  caught  them  up  at  Jullundur,  inspected 
them,  promised  them  gratuities  if  they  should  be  wounded,  and 
pensions  to  their  heirs  if  they  should  fall  in  battle,  distributed  a 
bounty  of  five  thousand  rupees,  and  gave  all  the  native  officers 
robes  of  honour.  What  wonder,  after  this,  that  they  went  off,  as 
he  said,  very  kush  (happy)  ?  '  They  are  a  fine  body  of  men,'  he 
says  to  Edwardes,  'young,  active,  and  well  made,  just  the  lads  for 
a  hillside,  but  not  showing  the  bone  and  muscle  of  the  Sings.' 
The  whole  incident  shows  again  that  '  infinite  capacity  for  taking 
pains,'  on  which  I  have  already  remarked. 

Meanwhile,  there  was  a  lull  in  the  operations  before  Delhi. 
News  of  the  tragedies  at  Cawnpore  and  Lucknow  had  reached  the 
camp  ;  and  it  was  clear  that  Havelock,  whatever  might  be  his 
wishes,  and  whatever  the  brilliancy  of  his  victories,  would  be  unable 
to  move  northwards  for  many  a  day.  Reinforcements  from  Eng- 
land, it  was  also  clear,  could  not  now  be  looked  for  till  the  crisis 
was  past  ;  for  the  English  Government,  evidently  in  profound  ig- 
norance of  its  urgency,  instead  of  hurrying  out  regiments  by  the 
quickest  possible  route  overland,  were  allowing  them  to  waste  two 
precious  months  in  the  voyage  round  the  Cape.  Hope,  therefore, 
of  help  from  without — otherwise  than  from  John  Lawrence — there 
was  none  at  all.  To  keep  his  troops  as  much  as  possible  under 
shelter  of  his  camp,  to  husband  his  ammunition,  to  wait  till  the  last 
man  and  the  last  heavy  gun  had  arrived  from  the  Punjab — such 
seemed  to  be  General  Wilson's  wisest  policy,  while  Nicholson  was 
on  his  way,  and  while  the  Siege  Train  of  heavy  guns  from  Phillour 
and  Ferozepore  was  dragging  its  slow  length  along. 

Happily  such  news  as  was  brought  us  from  the  interior  of  the 
city  by  the  Intelligence  Department,  which  was  under  the  able 
direction  of  Hodson,  went  to  show  that  passive  resistance  would 
do  almost  as  much  for  us  as  more  active  measures.  There  were 
jealousies  and  open  feuds,  so  Hodson's  spies  brought  back  word, 

VOL.  II.  —  II 


l62  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE..  1857 

among  the  population  of  the  city  generally,  among  the  military 
leaders,  and  even  in  the  palace  itself.  The  old  king,  they  said,  was 
being  insulted  by  swash-bucklers  in  open  Durbar,  the  generals 
often  quarrelled  in  his  presence,  his  sons  were  busy  intriguing 
against  him  and  against  one  another,  the  treasury  was  empty,  and 
the  forced  loan,  which  had  now  been  levied,  for  the  third  time,  on 
the  unhappy  merchants,  had  left  little  to  be  looked  for  either  in 
the  way  of  loyalty  or  money  from  them.  Did  the  Great  Mogul 
order  the  troopers  who  had  pitched  their  camp  in  the  middle  of  his 
garden  to  leave  it  ?  They  flatly  refused  to  go.  Did  he  taunt  his 
army  with  their  numerous  defeats,  and  with  their  failure  to  capture 
a  single  gun  from  an  enemy  who  was  so  much  their  inferior  in 
numbers  ?  He  found  that  his  taunts  were  as  powerless  as  his 
threats.  He  had  already  opened  communications  with  the  Eng- 
lish, offering  to  admit  them  into  the  Palace,  and  so  into  the  city,  if 
his  pension  were  guaranteed  to  him  ;  communications  which,  it 
should  be  added,  Sir  John  Lawrence,  who  had  always  thought  him 
more  sinned  against  than  sinning,  had  been  disposed  to  entertain, 
if  he  could  first  prove  himself  to  be  guiltless  of  English  blood. 
But  the  negotiations  had  fallen  through,  and  the  poor  old  dotard 
was  now  talking  of  abdication  and  of  a  pilgrimage  to  Mecca,  a  town 
which  in  his  second  childhood,  he 'seems — like  the  Children-Cru- 
saders of  the  Middle  Ages — to  have  thought  lay  in  some  adjoining 
district,  not  many  days'  march  from  his  home  !  Meanwhile  the 
bazaars  were  being  rifled  afresh  by  each  new  batch  of  mutineers  as 
they  entered  the  city.  Some  regiments,  when  they  arrived,  found 
the  city  gates  closed  against  them,  for  those  who  were  already 
inside  wished  to  keep  all  the  plunder  to  themselves.  Others  turned 
away  in  disgust  because  they  could  not  get  a  share  of  the  spoils 
which  had  been  already  divided.  The  whole  city  was  at  the  mercy 
of  a  rude  soldiery.  The  sanctity  of  the  harem  was  invaded,  and 
honour  and  life  were  as  unsafe  as  property.  Thus,  all  the  news 
which  reached  us  went  to  show  that  if  the  besieged  were  given 
time  to  cut  their  own  throats  they  might,  very  possibly,  save  us  the 
trouble  of  doing  so.  One  spirited  body  of  mutineers,  indeed,  stung 
by  the  taunts  of  the  old  king,  engaged  to  fight  us  continuously  for  a 
week.  We  met  them,  for  several  days,  with  defensive  tactics,  but 
at  last,  on  the  12  th  of  August,  we  suddenly  took  the  offensive, 
drove  them  pell-mell  into  the  city,  and  captured  their  guns,  though 
at  the  cost,  for  the  rest  of  the  siege,  of  the  services  of  two  of  the 
best  officers  in  camp.  Brigadier  Showers  and  Major  Coke,  both  of 
whom  fell  severely  wounded. 


i857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  163 

About  this  time  (to  quote  the  words  of  an  eye-witness,  the  author  of 
one  of  the  best  books  upon  the  siege  of  Delhiy^  a  stranger  of  very  strik- 
ing appearance  was  remarked  visiting  all  our  picquets,  examining 
everything,  and  making  most  searching  inquiries  about  their  strength 
and  history.  His  attire  gave  no  clue  to  his  rank  ;  it  evidently  never 
gave  the  owner  a  thought.  Moreover,  in  those  anxious  times,  everyone 
went  as  he  pleased  ;  perhaps  no  two  officers  were  dressed  alike.  .  .  . 
He  was  a  man  cast  in  a  giant  mould,  with  massive  chest  and  powerful 
limbs,  and  an  expression  ardent  and  commanding,  with  a  dash  of  rough- 
ness ;  features  of  stern  beauty,  a  long  black  beard,  and  deep  sonorous 
voice.  There  was  something  of  immense  strength,  talent,  and  resolution 
in  his  whole  gait  and  manner,  and  a  power  of  ruling  men  on  high  occa- 
sions that  no  one  could  escape  noticing  at  once.  His  imperial  air,  which 
never  left  him,  and  which  would  have  been  thought  arrogant  in  one  of 
less  imposing  mien,  sometimes  gave  offence  to  the  more  unbending 
among  his  countrymen,  but  made  him  almost  worshipped  by  the  pliant 
Asiatics.  He  seemed  to  disdain  any  other  than  a  ruling«part,  speaking 
rarely  in  ordinary  society.  Such  a  man  would  have  risen  rapidly  from 
the  ranks  of  the  legions  to  the  throne  of  the  Csesars  ;  but,  in  the  service 
of  the  British,  it  was  thought  wonderful  that  he  became  a  Brigadier- 
General,  when,  by  seniority,  he  could  only  have  been  a  captain. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  stranger  thus  graphically 
described  was  Nicholson.  The  quick  march  of  his  Column  had 
been  still  more  quickened  by  an  express  from  General  Wilson, 
which  reached  him  on  August  2,  and  was  written  in  the  most 
urgent  terms. 

The  enemy  have  re-established  the  bridge  over  the  Nujuffghur  cut 
— which  we  had  destroyed — and  have  established  themselves  in  force 
there,  with  the  intention  of  moving  on  Alipore,  and  our  communications 
to  the  rear.  I  therefore  earnestly  beg  you  to  push  forward,  with  the  ut- 
most expedition  in  your  power,  both  to  drive  these  fellows  from  my  rear, 
and  to  aid  me  in  holding  my  position.  I  fear  you  will  also  have  have  had 
rain,  and  may  be  stopped  by  the  Markunda  Nulla,  but  pray  push  on. 

Obedient  to  this  summons,  Nicholson  had  '  pushed  on '  with  all 
speed,  and  when  within  three  or  four  marches  of  Delhi  had,  on  a 
second  request  of  General  Wilson,  ridden  ahead  of  his  force  to  con- 
sult with  him,  and  all  unknown,  except  to  the  old  Punjabis,  had 
appeared,  on  a  sudden,  in  the  middle  of  the  camp  of  which  he  was 
so  soon  to  become  a  ruling  spirit.  His  cold  reserved  bearing,  his 
apparent  haughtiness,  and  the  circumstances  attending  his  appoint- 
ment, caused  many  of  the  older  officers,  at  first,  to  look  askance  at 

'  History  of  the  Siege  of  Delhi y  by  an  Officer  who  served  there,  p.  223. 


164  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

him.  The  'Autocrat  of  All  the  Russias,'  as  he  used  to  be  called  by 
his  Punjabi  friends,  generally,  either  took  men  by  storm,  at  first 
sight,  by  his  noble  bearing,  or  he  alienated  them  seriously.  On  the 
following  day  he  returned  to  his  force,  having  takeij  the  measure, 
as  he  thought,  of  the  military  position  and  of  the  chief  military 
authorities.  And  on  the  14th  he  again  rode  into  the  English  camp 
at  the  head  of  his  Column  ;  at  the  head,  that  is,  of  the  grandest 
contribution  sent  by  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Punjab  to  the 
enterprise  which  still  lay  unfinished — it  might  almost  be  said  not 
yet  begun — in  front  of  him. 

The  small  force  upon  the  Ridge,  raised  now  to  8,000  men  of  all 
arms,  could  breathe  more  freely,  and  not  many  days  elapsed  before 
the  post  of  danger  and  of  honour  fell  to  the  new  comer.  The  Siege 
Train  was  still  on  its  way,  as  the  mutineers  knew  well,  and  the 
Neemuch  Brigade,  supported  by  that  of  Bareilly,  had  been  sent 
out  from  Delhi  to  intercept  it.  But  Nicholson  determined  instead 
to  intercept  them. 

He  set  out  with  his  Column  of  2,000  men  on  the  following  morn- 
ing. The  country  was  much  flooded.  Rain  was  falling  in  torrents, 
and  the  Horse  Artillery  guns  were  soon  almost  buried  in  the  bog. 
Most  generals  would  have  given  up  the  project  in  despair,  but  hear- 
ing about  mid-day  that  the  enemy  were  some  twelve  miles  ahead, 
at  Nujuffghur,  by  sheer  force  of  will,  he  induced  his  drenched  and 
tired  out  men  to  push  on.  They  came  in  sight  of  the  enemy  an 
hour  before  sunset,  and,  then  and  there,  Nicholson  attacked  them 
in  position,  and,  by  a  series  of  masterly  movements,  put  them  to 
flight,  capturing  the  whole  of  their  thirteen  guns  !  The  Bareilly 
Brigade,  which  was  in  earshot  of  the  battle,  hearing  of  what  had 
befallen  their  Neemuch  brothers,  returned  to  Delhi  without  so  much 
as  striking  a  blow. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  no  one  in  camp  looked  askance 
at  Nicholson  after  this,  for  it  was  the  greatest  blow  which  the  muti- 
neers had  yec  received.  The  delight  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  at  this 
first  achievement  of  his  new  Brigadier-General  before  Delhi  was 
unfeigned. 

Though  sorely  pressed  with  work,  I  write  a  line  to  congratulate  you 
on  your  success.  I  wish  I  had  the  power  of  knighting  you  on  the  spot. 
.  .  .  Don't  assault  until  you  have  given  the  mutineers  all  the  powder 
and  shot  which  the  Siege  Train  can  spare,  and  then  go  in,  and  may  God 
be  with  you  all  ! 

Nicholson  would  not  have  cared  much   for  being  '  knighted  on 


i857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF  DELHI.  165 

the  spot,'  but  he  did  care  very  much  for  the  service  he  had  done, 
and  for  the  good  opinion  of  his  chief. 

Many  thanks  (he  wrote  back)  for  your  kind  letter  of  the  27th.  I 
would  much  rather  win  the  good  opinion  of  my  friends,  than  any  kind 
of  honorary  distinction,  ...  I  feel  very  thankful  for  my  success,  for 
had  these  two  Brigades  succeeded  in  getting  to  our  rear,  they  would, 
undoubtedly,  have  done  much  mischief. 

Edwardes,  writing  to  John  Lawrence,  was  equally  enthusiastic 
over  the  successes  of  his  friend.  The  expressions  which  he  had 
used  when  he  found  that  he  must  do  without  Nicholson's  services 
at  Peshawur,  seemed  now  hardly  overstrained. 

He  is  a  great  loss  to  us,  but  will  be  a  greater  gain  down  below,  and  I 
think  you  have  done  quite  right  in  moving  him.  May  he  be  useful  and' 
successful,  and  come  back  crowned  with  honour.  .  .  .  You  have  been 
very  vigorous  in  pushing  down  reinforcements,  and  these  appointments 
of  Chamberlain  and  Nicholson  are  worth  armies.  ...  I  am  so  proud  to 
see  these  two  noble  men  called  to  their  right  place  in  front,  and  from  our 
frontier  !  Amid  the  ruins  of  the  Regular  army  these  two  Irregular 
pillars  stand  boldly  up  against  the  sky — and  I  hope  the  Tom  Noddies 
may  study  their  architecture. 

But  some  time  must  still  elapse  before  the  Siege  Train,  the  Jum- 
moo  Contingent,  and  the  last  of  the  Punjab  reinforcements  can  reach 
the  camp  and  enable  Nicholson  to  '  go  in  and  win.'  And  while 
the  force  before  Delhi,  who  are  now,  for  the  first  time,  to  become 
besiegers  rather  than  besieged  are,  as  it  were,  taking  breath  for  their 
final  effort,  I  may  quote  from  the  mass  of  correspondence  before  me  a 
few  samples  of  the  letters  written  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  'the  outer 
circle  '  of  his  correspondents,  to  such  men  as  Lord  Canning,  Lord 
Elphinstone,  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  Mr.  Colvin,  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  the  North-West  Provinces,  and  Mr.  Mangles,  the  Chairman  of 
the  Court  of  Directors  at  home.  I  may  quote  also  a  few  of  the 
letters  which  he  wrote  to  his  '  inner  circle,'  to  men  like  Edwardes 
at  Peshawur,  or  Nicholson,  Chamberlain,  Norman,  Greathed,  and 
Wilson,  before  Delhi.  The  first  group  will  best  illustrate  his  com- 
prehensive views  for  the  future  when  Delhi  should  have  fallen, 
views  never  obscured  by  the  multiplicity  of  details  or  the  press 
of  current  business  connected  with  his  own  province.  The  other 
will  indicate  his  extraordinary  grasp  of  detail  as  well  as  his  deter- 
mination, now  that  he  had  done  his  best  for  the  fall  of  Delhi, 
that  those  before  the  place  should  do  theirs,  and  that,  so  far  as 
he  could  prevent  it,  there   should  be  no  turning  back,   no  more 


l66  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

halting  between  two  opinions,  when  once  the   hour  should  have 
struck. 

The  first  letter  I  select  is  to  Lord  Canning,  and  contains  amongst 
other  matters  of  interest  his  answer  to  the  message  to  '  hold  on  to 
Peshawur  to  the  last.' 

Lahore  :  August  14,  1857, 

My  Lord, — I  beg  to  acknowledge  your  Lordship's  letter  of  the  15th 
ullimo,  wliich  I  received  yesterday.  Our  western  boundary  is  a  very 
difficult  and  complicated  question,  on  which  a  great  deal  may  be  said 
both  for  the  mountain  and  the  river  barrier.  I  used  to  be  very  strongly 
in  favour  of  the  former.  But  time  and  experience  have  led  me  to  modify 
my  views.  We  will,  of  course,  hold  on  to  the  last  as  you  desire,  and  if 
Delhi  only  falls  within  a  reasonable  period,  all  will  go  well.  But  until 
tliis  takes  place,  we  must  stand  on  the  verge  of  a  precipice. 

General  Havelock  has  got  great  success.  We  heard  this  morning 
that  he  had  gained  another  victory  on  his  way  to  Lucknow.  God  grant 
that  it  may  be  true,  and,  above  all,  that  he  may  arrive  in  time  to  save 
our  country  folks  in  Lucknow.  I  hope  it  has  been  arranged  that,  after 
doing  this,  he  will  return  to  Cawnpore  with  them.  I  think  we  should 
abandon  Oude  for  the  present.  We  can  easily  reconquer  it.  If  we  try 
to  do  this  at  present,  we  shall  not  succeed  effectually,  while  we  shall 
compromise  ourselves  elsewhere. 

When  all  the  Punjab  reinforcements  arrive  at  Delhi,  there  will  be 
some  fifteen  thousand  men  present,  a  force  amply  sufficient,  I  believe,  to 
take  the  place.  But  should  they  fail  in  their  attempt,  or  should  they  not 
try  to  take  it  by  assault,  every  effort  should  be  made  to  reinforce  the 
army  before  that  place.  If  we  hope  to  stem  the  tide  we  must  take  Delhi. 
Its  strength,  its  political  importance,  render  its  capture  essential  to  our 
political  existence.  Deprived  of  it,  the  insurgents  will  speedily  degenerate 
into  a  rabble.  They  may  endeavour  to  retire  on  Gwalior,  but  the  proba- 
bility is  that  they  will  disperse  and  return  to  their  own  homes. 

As  regards  new  troops,  I  strongly  recommend  that  your  Lordship  order 
regiments  of  Ghoorkas,  Bundelas,  Menatties,  Jats,  Rajpoots,  Bheels  and 
Sonthals  to  be  raised.  The  Bheels  and  Sonthals  had  better  be  unmixed. 
All  the  others  should  be  mixed.  I  shall  have  twenty  Punjab  corps  be- 
sides seven  police  Battalions  complete  by  October  i.and  can  easily  raise, 
or  rather  make  up,  four  or  five  more  from  the  levies  which  have  been 
raised  for  temporary  service.  I  am  char)- of  doing  too  much  in  this  way, 
lest  they  should  feel  their  strength.  But  from  the  moment  that  Euro- 
pean troops  commence  pouring  into  the  country,  I  can,  if  your  Lordship 
desire  it,  go  on  raising  more  corps.  Our  regiments  are  well  mixed  and 
not  too  strong,  ten  companies  of  eighty  men  each,  viz.  four  Mohammedan, 
four  Sikh,  two  Hill  men. 

I  do  not  advocate  our  enlisting  many  Afridis,  nor  indeed  many  Pa- 
thans  from  beyond  our  border.  We  have  not  the  same  hold  on  them  as 
on  our  own  subjects.     They  are  more  difficult  to  manage,  more  fanatical, 


1 857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  167 

more  restless  than  the  Mohammedans  of  our  lands  on  this  side  the  In- 
dus, The  Afridis  are  brave  and  hardy  fellows,  but  very  restless  and  im- 
patient of  discipline.  They  like  service  close  to  their  homes.  Officers 
like  Major  Lumsden  and  Major  Coke  can,  doubtless,  manage  them,  but 
■few  others  succeed.  Even  Captain  Wilde  of  the  4th  Punjab  Rifles  has 
just  lost  nine  from  desertion  since  he  crossed  the  Indus,  because  they 
heard  they  were  going  to  Delhi. 

Doubtless,  we  must  have  an  army  of  natives,  and  the  sooner  this  is 
formed  the  better.  But  I  would  suggest  that  it  be  no  larger  than  is  ab- 
solutely necessary.  I  have  long  believed  that  we  had  too  many  native 
troops,  compared  with  the  European,  and,  after  what  has  occurred,  it  is 
clear  that  we  must  add  largely  to  the  latter.  This  we  cannot  afford 
unless  we  place  the  native  army  on  an  economical  footing.  I  would  ad- 
vocate not  only  that  which  all  men  will  now  unite  in  recommending,  a 
great  mixture  of  races,  but  also  that  we  have  three  different  classes  of 
native  troops.  That  is,  Corps  of  the  Line,  Irregular  Corps,  and  Police 
Corps.  If  care  be  taken  in  raising  them,  little  sympathy  will  exist  be- 
tween each  class.  The  whole  cost  will  be  less  than  that  of  the  old  army, 
and  a  large  surplus  therefore  will  be  available  to  meet  the  extra  expense 
of  the  European  troops. 

We  are  all  doing  well  here.  Yesterday  we  heard  that  our  troops  be- 
fore Delhi  had  captured  four  guns,  with  some  loss,  however,  to  them- 
selves. The  soldiers  are  in  good  spirits,  and  I  have  much  hope  that  an 
effort  will  be  made  to  take  the  place  before  long.  Chamberlain  getting 
wounded  was  a  great  loss.  Nicholson,  however,  will  supply  his  place. 
Your  Lordship  is  quite  right  to  hold  Allahabad  strongly.  If  we  lost  that 
place  we  should  lose  the  gate  into  the  Upper  Provinces. 

Lahore  :  August  14,  1857. 
My  dear  Lord  Elphinstone, — We  are  much  obliged  to  you  for  the 
cash.  We  shall  require  it  all.  The  whole  army  at  Delhi,  and  the  Hill 
stations,  as  far  as  Mussoorie,  depend  on  us.  What  you  say  about  the 
difficulty  of  removing  incompetent  Generals  is  undeniable.  Still,  unless' 
they  be  removed,  ruin  and  disgrace  in  time  of  difficulty  must  ensue. 
Somebody  must  '  bell  the  cat,'  as  they  used  to  say  in  Scotland,  and  it  is 
better  to  encounter  obloquy  than  see  everything  we  hold  dear  and  prize 
go  to  destruction.  I  only  wish  I  had  the  power  to  put  one  or  two  gen- 
tlemen on  the  shelf  I  ...  I  do  not  think  that  our  army  should,  perhaps 
could,  leave  Delhi.  If  we  did,  it  would  probably  ruin  us.  Our  cavalry 
are  few  and  inferior  ;  our  communications  would  be  cut  off,  we  should 
obtain  supplies  with  difficulty,  for  our  prestige  would  be  gone.  No, 
there  is  nothing  for  it,  in  my  mind,  but  to  take  Delhi  or  perish  in  the 
struggle. 

It  may  be  remembered  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  had,  within  the 
first  few  days  of  the  outbreak  of  the  Mutiny,  written  to  Mr.  Man- 
gles, a  stirring  letter  which  I  have  quoted  in  full.     Here  is  a  worthy 


l68  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

sequel  to  it,  written  in  the  hope  of  arousing  a  strong  feeling  among 
the  authorities  at  home  as  to  the  necessary  changes  in  the  army, 
when  once  the  Mutiny  should  have  been  quelled. 

Lahore  :  August  28,  1857. 

My  dear  Sir, — I  was  much  obliged  for  your  kiiul  letter  of  July  10. 
Long  ere  this  you  will  have  lieard  and  been  convinced  that  my  antici- 
pations have  fallen  far  short  of  the  reality.  The  greater  part  of  the  Ben- 
gal army,  Regular  and  Irregular,  have  mutinied,  and  the  horrors  and 
atrocities  which  they  have  perpetrated  are  scarcely  to  be  paralleled  in 
those  of  any  time  or  country.  It  has  only  been  by  the  aid  of  the  Almighty 
that  we  have  maintained  the  struggle.  Had  not  the  Persian  war  come 
to  an  end  when  it  did,  had  we  not  got  the  aid  of  the  British  troops  bound 
for  China,  and  lastly,  had  not  the  Punjab  troops  and  people  stood  firm, 
God  only  knows  what  would  have  been  the  result.  Even  now  our  state 
is  most  precarious.  I  do  trust  that  regiments  are  coming  out  overland, 
for  I  really  do  not  see  how  otherwise  we  shall  maintain  the  struggle.  In 
the  Punjab  we  are  better  off  than  in  any  other  part  of  this  Presidency. 
But  even  here,  I  cannot  reflect  that  we  shall  be  for  three  or  four  more 
months  without  troops  from  England,  except  with  great  anxiety.  Out  of 
three  regiments  of  European  Infantry,  and  a  large  force  of  Artillery,  only 
1.000  men  at  Peshawur  are  now  fit  for  duty  !  In  all  the  rest  of  the  Pun- 
jab, the  sound  men  cannot  exceed  2,000.  We  have  nothing  in  the  in- 
terior of  the  country  but  Police  Corps  and  new  Punjab  regiments.  It 
has  been  a  sad  misfortune  that  while  our  native  Hindustani  Corps  were 
kept  up  to  1,150  bayonets,  the  Europeans,  the  sinews  of  our  strength, 
were  two  or  three  hundred  men  below  their  complement.  The  corps 
now  fighting  at  Delhi  scarcely  musters  six  or  seven  hundred  men.  We 
are  also  badly  off"  for  artillerymen. 

It  would  be  mere  folly  to  conceal  this  state  of  things.  We  siiall,  of 
course,  all  do  our  best  and  fight  it  out  to  the  last,  but  we  are  certainly 
in  great  straits  and  in  the  utmost  need  of  all  the  aid  which  England  can 
send. 

You  will  have  heard  of  the  sad  fate  of  my  dear  brother  Sir  Henry, 
and  of  the  still  more  terrible  catastrophe  which  has  befallen  Sir  Hugh 
Wheeler  and  our  countrymen  and  countrywomen  at  Cawnpore.  The 
shock  which  our  prestige  and  power  in  India  have  received  has  been 
very  great,  and  the  reorganisation  of  the  Native  Army  and  system  of 
administration  in  the  North-West  Provinces  will  tax  the  ability  and 
energies  of  our  best  officers.  Indeed,  I  do  not  know  where  men  equal 
to  the  task  are  to  be  found.  All  our  old  military  men  are  unequal  to  the 
crisis.  We  have  some  excellent  soldiers,  no  doubt,  in  the  army,  but  they 
are  brought  to  the  front  very  tardily. 

Delhi  still  holds  out,  and  had  we  but  a  soldier  equal  to  the  crisis  in 
command,  it  ought  to  fall  within  the  next  fortnight.  General  Wilson  is 
a  vast  improvement  over  his  predecessors,  but  is  too  undecided  for  such 
-a  task.     In  Chamberlain  and  John  Nicholson  I  rest  my  main  hope.    The 


iS57  SIEGE    AND    CAPTURE    OF    DELHI.  169 

latter  is  an  officer  of  g'reat  force  of  character  and  resolution.  He  has 
just  struck  the  only  real  blow  which  the  mutineers  have  received  since 
the  first  day  after  the  arrival  of  our  army  at  Delhi.  He  has  beaten  them 
well,  taken  all  their  guns,  and  destroyed  their  camp  at  Nujuffghur.  This 
was  the  force  which  had  evidently  gone  out  to  attempt  to  intercept  the 
new  Siege  Train  now  near  Kurnal  on  its  way  to  Delhi. 

You  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  Persia  has  evacuated  Herat,  and  that  the 
Afghans  still  adiiere  to  the  treaty.  We  cannot,  however,  reckon  much 
on  the  latter,  unless  Delhi  falls  soon.  Pray  don't  forget  to  urge  on  the 
Government  the  necessity  for  sending  out  plenty  of  artillerymen.  Not 
less  than  three  to  four  thousand  men  should  be  sent  out  during  the  win- 
ter. There  is  not  a  Troop  or  Company  near  its  full  complement,  and 
we  must  no  longer,  as  a  rule,  use  native  artillerymen. 

I  am  afraid  you  will  think  that  I  am  unnecessarily  alarmed.  But 
such  is  not  the  case.  From  the  first  I  anticipated  calamitous  results 
from  our  unprepared  state,  and  the  inability  of  our  leaders  to  see  the 
precipice  which  was  yawning  at  our  feet.  It  seems  to  me  mere  folly  to  shut 
our  eyes  to  the  dangers  which  beset  us.  We  will,  nevertheless,  do  our 
best  to  maintain  our  position,  and  I  have  every  hope  that,  with  the  aid 
of  the  Almighty,  we  shall  succeed.  But  the  struggle  is  a  grievous  one, 
and  the  individual  suffering  involved  is  terrible  to  contemplate.  An 
entire  change  of  policy  as  regards  the  army  with  which  we  shall  hold 
India  is  necessary.  A  native  army  we  must  have,  but  it  should  not 
exceed  the  number  absolutely  necessary,  and  the  proportion  of  Euro- 
peans should  be  largely  increased,  and  carefully  maintained.  The  Reg- 
ular system  should  be  abolished,  and  that  of  the  Irregulars  substituted. 
Above  all,  the  system  of  putting  old  and  incompetent  men  into  high 
command  should  be  done  away  with.  The  incompetency  of  General 
Hewitt  was  patent  and  notorious  to  the  whole  army  years  ago.  I  pointed 
it  out  when  he  was  first  sent  to  Peshawur. 

Had  we  had  a  competent  officer  in  command,  the  result  of  the  battle 
at  Agra  would  have  been  very  different.  That  cantonment  would  not 
have  been  burnt,  and  our  folks  would  not  have  been  immured  in  the 
Fort.  The  whole  feeling  in  India  is  in  favour  of  the  old  system.  Men 
trust  to  the  chapter  of  accidents  in  the  hope  that  the  evil  day  may  not 
come  in  their  time,  and  so  do  not  like  to  see  its  old  incapables  passed 
over.     However,  I  will  not  inflict  on  you  any  more  of  my  opinions. 

To  Colvin,  who  had  done  excellent  work  in  time  of  peace  in  the 
North- West,  but  whose  health  was  now  rapidly  failing  under  the 
strain  of  the  Mutiny,  he  writes  a  letter  which  gives  a  vivid  picture 
of  the  denudation  of  the  Punjab  and  of  the  general  situation. 

Lahore  :  August  29,  1857. 
My  dear  Colvin, — I  have  received  your  notes.  ...  I  think  the  Meerut 
folks  in  shouting  out  for  more  troops  and  complaining  of  the  withdrawal 
of  the  Rifles  were  clearly  in  the  wrong.     Of  course,  it  would  be  very 


170  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENXE.  1857 

useful  having  a  good  force  at  Meerut,  but  tliis  sinks  into  insignificance 
compared  with  the  efficiency  of  the  army  before  Delhi.  Take  Delhi,  and 
all  will  go  well.  So  long  as  it  holds  out,  nothing  can  permanently 
improve. 

Next  to  Delhi,  the  clearing  of  the  Gangetic  Doab  and  opening  up  our 
communications  downwards  are  the  most  important  measures.  Each 
officer,  however,  is  too  apt  to  look  to  his  own  charge,  and  neglect  gen- 
eral considerations.  All  the  troops  1  can  spare,  I  send  down  to  General 
Wilson,  simply  indicating  the  way  in  which  I  suggest  they  may  be  em- 
ployed, but  leaving  him  quite  unfettered.  This  plan  works  much  the 
best.  We  have  now  sent  down  for  Meerut  a  Sikh  Corps  mustering  some 
seven  hundred  bayonets,  Colonel  Dawes' troop  of  Horse  Artillery  (Euro- 
peans), and  two  hundred  and  fifty  Pathan  horse  under  Major  Stokes  of 
the  59th.  Another  hundred  horse  have  since  been  sent  down,  who  will, 
])robably,  also  be  sent  off  to  Meerut.  I  have  also  collected  a  hundred  old 
Sikh  sowars,  and  shall  collect  a  second  hundred  for  Williams,  for  Police 
purposes.  He  is  to  mount  and  equip  them,  and  they  to  receive  only 
seven  rupees  per  mensem  until  they  arrive,  and  are  gradually  to  repay 
the  sums  advanced  for  their  equipment  out  of  their  pay.  The  first  batch 
went  off  yesterday,  and  another  goes  to-day.  All  will  be  off  within  the 
next  ten  days,  and  get  down  quickly  in  the  parcel  dawk  carriages. 

There  will  doubtless  be  much  difficulty  in  reconstructing  and  reno- 
vating the  administration  in  the  North-West.  But  it  may  be  done  by 
energy  and  perseverance.  Once  destroy  the  insurgent  army  and  disarm 
the  countrv,  and  the  rest  will  be  only  a  matter  of  time.  But  nothing 
will  do  without  a  careful  selection  of  the  machinery,  European  and 
Native,  more  particularly  of  the  former.  We  can  assist  you  a  good 
deal  with  Punjabis  for  police.  But  these  men,  though  hardy  and  reso- 
lute, are  not  very  intelligent,  and  you  will  require  a  good  mixture  of 
picked  Hindustanis.  I  would  employ  no  Mohammedan  Hindustanis  for 
some  years,  and  very  few  Brahmins  and  Rajpoots.  Jats,  Mewatis,  Bun- 
delas,  Bheels,  and  the  like  are  good  material  for  police.  But  you  must 
pay  them  better  than  formerly.  Our  policemen  get  five  rupees  per 
mensem.  Yours  should  get  six.  The  first  reform  up  here  began  by  my 
giving  five  rupees  in  the  Trans-Sutlej  division. 

In  the  Delhi  territory  we  can  help  you  a  good  deal,  and  of  course  will 
do  so  whenever  you  may  desire  it.     But  in  the  first  instance  you  must 

get  picked  men  into  every  district.     Such  officers  as , ,  and  the 

like  can  do  no  good.     I  write  this  in  confidence. 

I  should  be,  in  the  first  instance,  for  proclaiming  martial  law,  and 
making  a  severe  example  of  the  insurgents.  The  mutineers  and  de- 
serters should  be  carefully  followed  up  and  brought  to  justice.  So  long 
as  these  men  are  loose,  there  w^ill  be  no  security.  A  couple  of  small 
movable  columns  would  put  down  all  opposition  duringthe  cold  weather 
from  the  Jumna  westwards.  The  Punjab  Force  now  in  Sirsa  and  in 
Hansi  under  Van  Cortlandt,  will  suffice  for  these  districts  and  Rohtuck. 
Paniput— with  the  exception  of  the  Narduck  country  and  its  Ranghur 


i857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  lyi 

population — is  an  easy  district  to  manage.  Delhi  will  subside  of  itself 
after  a  few  examples  have  been  made.  Gorgaon  ought  not  to  prove 
difficult. 

From  the  accounts  which  we  receive,  Rohilkund  will  not  prove  a 
difficult  task.     All  the  Hindu  population  desire  our  return. 

As  regards  money,  we  are  doing  pretty  well.  We  have  sent  large 
sums  to  the  army,  and  still  have  some  in  hand.  The  Sikh  chiefs,  and 
the  Jummoo  Maharaja  have  helped  us.  Twenty-five  lacs  of  rupees  have 
come,  or  are  coming  from  Bombay,  and  our  six  per  cent,  loan  has  given 
us  something.  I  have  also  put  everybody  in  arrears  of  pay  for  three 
months.  We  have  got  in  all  our  rubbee  (spring)  revenue,  and  the  cash 
plundered  in  our  treasuries  did  not  exceed  one  lac  of  rupees,  and  indeed 
ought  not  to  have  been  that.  Directly  the  road  is  open,  we  can  send 
you  four  or  five  lacs  without  difficulty,  perhaps  more.  We  have  sent 
Mussoorie  a  lac,  and  promised  two  more  between  this  and  December. 

If  Delhi  soon  falls — and  it  ought  to  fall  within  the  next  fortnight — all 
will  go  well.  But  if  it  should  hold  out  until  December,  before  which 
time  troops,  in  any  numbers,  can  scarcely  come  out  and  be  brought  to 
bear,  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  may  be  our  state. 

The  Persians  have  evacuated  Herat ;  and  so  the  Afghans  are  safe  on 
that  side.  They  may  now,  perhaps,  turn  their  eyes  towards  Peshawur. 
We  have  three  European  regiments  there,  but  they  can  scarcely  muster 
one  thousand  men  fit  to  take  the  field.  All  the  rest  are  prostrated  by 
sickness.  We  have  four  regiments  of  Sikh  Infantry,  but  three  are  new 
corps.  These  and  about  twelve  hundred  Pathan  horse  are  all  we  have 
to  hold  the  border,  to  keep  down  rebellion,  and  overawe  eight  thousand 
Hindustani  soldiers  in  the  Peshawur  valley.  It  was  only  last  night  that 
we  heard  that  the  Sist  had  made  a  desperate  attempt  to  seize  the  arms 
of  a  Sikh  regiment.  They  will,  I  trust,  be  all  destroyed.  In  the  inte- 
rior of  the  country  we  are  still  weaker. 

I  have  raised  eleven  regiments  of  Sikh  Infantry  already,  and  several 
thousand  horsemen  of  various  kinds.  I  fear  to  raise  more  until  I  see 
the  European  troops  beginning  to  arrive  from  England.  Nothing  can 
be  better  than  the  spirit  of  the  Sikhs  just  now,  but  we  may  have  to  fight 
them  also.  The  error  we  made — an  error  which  was  pointed  out,  but 
to  which  no  one  would  listen — was  adding  to  our  native  troops,  while 
the  strength  of  the  European  Force  actually  fell  off.  The  insane  confi- 
dence which  continued  vociferation  on  the  part  of  our  officers  had  gen- 
erated in  the  fidelity  of  our  Native  army,  had  produced  a  belief  in  Eng- 
land that  we  could  really  hold  India  by  means  of  these  troops.  Hiitc 
ill(X  lachrytncB. 

I  will  try  and  draw  up  a  few  notes  connected  with  the  administration 
of  the  North-West,  which  I  will  send  you.  But  I  am  sorely  pressed  with 
work,  and  am  not  at  all  well.   .  .  . 

I  now  turn  to  the  letters  written  to  his  inner  circle,  and  in  par- 
ticular to  those  men  on  whom  he  placed  most  dependence  for  the 


172  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

coming  operations  before  Delhi.  It  will  be  seen  how  he  influenced 
everything  that  was  done  there,  and  was,  in  fact  the  ruling  spirit. 

Lahore:  August  11,  1857. 

My  dear  Chamberlain, — The  Siecje  Train  starts  to-morrow,  escorted 
by  the  wing  of  the  Belooch  battaUon  and  four  companies  of  a  new  Pun- 
jab corps.  I  want  the  latter  to  be  sent  back,  if  you  can  manage  it,  to 
Umballa.  These  to  be  put  together  with  the  other  wing  which  it  has 
never  yet  seen.  In  taking  away  four  hundred  of  the  66th  Rifles  from 
Meerut,  I  would  send  in  its  place  either  the  Nusseri  Battalion  or  a  Pun- 
jab corps  of  six  or  seven  hundred  men.  For  it  is  just  possible  that  the 
corps  at  Meerut  may  have  something  to  do. 

If  the  mutineers  detach  a  couple  of  regiments  towards  Hansi,  would 
it  not  be  worth  while  to  send  a  force  after  them  and  cut  them  up  ? 
Unless  you  intend  attacking  Delhi  in  their  absence,  I  should  consider  it 
a  good  move. 

Maharaja  Runbeer  Sing's  troops,  weather  permitting,  will  be  at  Jul- 
lundur  on  the  15th.  I  have  much  hope  that  they  will  prove  very  useful. 
I  hope  that  so  long  as  they  deserve  confidence  they  will  receive  it. 
Nothing  will  do  more  harm  than  for  them  to  fancy  they  are  suspected. 
It  would  be  far  better  to  send  them  to  a  distance. 

I  see  that  some  of  our  friends  at  Delhi  buoy  themselves  up  with  the 
hope  that  my  brother  Henry  is  still  alive.  But  I  feel  a  conviction  that 
such  is  not  the  case.  Havelock  knew  him  well,  and  would  have  said  so 
if  the  news  was  doubtful.  Besides,  I  see  that  Banks  commands  in  Luck- 
now.  Poor  Henry  !  I  never  thought  that  he  would  have  fallen.  I  had 
imagined  that  aid  would  have  been  long  ago  pushed  up  to  him. 

What  a  sad  tragedy  has  this  been  at  Cawnpore  !     It  is  quite  horrible 

to  think  of  it.     Had  not  that  ass been  at  Allahabad,  matters  would 

not  have  been  so  complicated  there,  and  a  couple  of  steamers  might  have 
got  up  to  Cawnpore  with  sufficient  troops  to  save  the  place.  It  was 
also  the  loss  of  Cawnpore  that  caused  the  pressure  on  Lucknow. 

We  are  longing  for  news  from  down  below,  but  we  get  none.  The 
last  letter  from  Bombay  said  that  'the  Himalaya  had  reached  Calcutta 
on  July  20,  with  1,500  European  soldiers.' 

Lahore  :  August  15,  1857. 

My  dear  Nicholson, — Thanks  for  your  letter  of  the  nth,  which  goes 
on  to  Edwardes.  I  am  sorry  to  hear  what  you  say  about  matters  at 
Delhi.  But  we  must  make  the  best  of  them.  Two  days  ago  I  sent 
Chamberlain  an  extract  of  a  letter  from  the  Governor-General  of  the 
15th  ultimo,  from  which  it  appears  to  me  clear  that  no  reinforcements 
can  be  expected  from  below  for  many  a  day.  I  should  say  not  before 
troops  arrive  in  numbers  from  England.  He  will  no  doubt  show  you 
the  extract,  when  you  can  judge  for  yourself.  There  appears  to  me  but 
one  way  by  which  Havelock  could  march  on  Delhi  ;  viz.,  by  defeating 
the  Lucknow  insurgents,  bringing  away  our  people,  leaving  a  small  force 
safely  posted  at  Cawnpore,  and  marching  with  the  rest  straight  on  Delhi. 


l8S7  SIEGE   AxND    CAPTURE    OF    DELHI.  173 

Yesterday  I  also  heard  from  General  Wilson.  He  seems  somewhat 
disquieted,  and  says  he  wants  European,  and  not  Native  troops.  If 
we  could  give  him  more  of  the  former  we  would  do  so,  but,  not  having 
them  to  send,  we  supply  him  with  what  material  we  have  at  hand.  It 
seems  to  me  that  we  are  playing  at  cross  purposes  about  Stafford's  corps. 
We  proposed  that  it  should  go  to  Saharunpore,  the  Ghoorkas  from  thenc^ 
to  Meerut,  and  the  60th  Rides  from  Meerut  to  Delhi.  This  has  been 
put  out  by  carrying  off  half  the  corps  to  Delhi.  I  have  told  Wilson  that 
all  the  troops  sent  from  here  are  at  his  disposal  to  send  wherever  he 
likes  ;  and  we  can  do  no  more  than  this.  It  is  for  him  to  distribute  them 
to  the  best  advantage,  and  to  see  that  his  distribution  is  carried  out. 

He  also  appears  to  be  doubtful  about  the  Jummoo  troops,  and  asks 
me  if  they  are  '  thoroughly  trustworthy,'  and  so  forth.  How  can  I  say 
this  ?  I  believe  that  they  may  be  trusted,  and,  were  I  in  his  place,  I 
would  trust  them.  If  he  cannot  make  up  his  mind  on  the  subject,  why 
employ  them  at  all  ?     Or,  why  not  send  them  elsewhere  than  to  Delhi  ? 

In  a  letter,  written  a  few  days  later,  John  Lawrence  brought  to 
bear  his  great  local  knowledge  of  Delhi,  in  the  hope  that  it  might 
be  of  service  in  the  assault,  and  might,  possibly,  do  something  to 
save  the  life  of  so  recklessly  brave  and  so  invaluable  an  officer  as 
Nicholson.  'Old  Nick,'  he  used  to  say,  '  is  a  forward  fellow,  and 
is  only  too  likely  to  get  knocked  over. ' 

Lahore  :  August  19,  1S57. 

My  dear  Nicholson, — Wilde  leaves  this  to-morrow  morning  with  thft 
whole  corps,  and  takes  Dawes'  troops  from  JuUundur.  He  expects  tc 
be  at  Delhi  by  the  4th,  which  is  quite  as  soon  as  you  folks  can  be  ready 
to  assault.  Should  your  Brigade  go  in  at  the  Cashmere  gate,  recollect 
that  when  you  once  pass  the  Octagon  inside,  you  come  to  an  open  space 
in  which  the  church  stands.  In  advance  of  this  open  ground  are  two 
streets  which  lead  onwards  into  the  town.  If  you  secure  two  houses, 
viz.,  Hamid  Ali  Khan's  and  Skinner's,  you  command  both  streets  and 
are  quite  safe  from  a  sudden  attack,  and  in  this  open  space  I  would 
counsel  that  you  re-form  your  men  and  get  in  your  guns  and  advance 
with  deliberation.  After  passing  the  old  Residency,  lately  the  College, 
you  come  to  the  old  Magazine  and  then  over  a  bridge  in  the  canal  to 
the  Palace.  From  the  ground  in  front  of  the  College  and  Magazine, 
which  is  higher  than  Selimghur,  you  could  shell  the  Palace  with  great 
advantage,  while,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  guns  from  neither 
Selimghur  nor  the  Palace  could  touch  you.   .  .  . 

Behind  the  church  is  a  pucca  house  with  a  large  Taikhana  leading 
outside  the  walls  of  the  town  on  the  river  side.  It  might  be  well  to  try 
it  at  the  same  time  that  the  Cashmere  gate  is  assaulted.  But  a  guide 
will  be  necessary.  At  any  rate,  it  will  be  well  to  know  of  this  passage. 
I  do  not  think  that  much  resistance  will  be  made  in  the  town.  I  antici- 
pate that  a  portion  of  the  mutineers  will  endeavour  to  hold  the  Palacff, 


174  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

and  that  tlie  rest  will  bolt.  Guns  cannot  be  mounted  on  the  walls  of  the 
Palace,  and  a  day's  shelling'  will  ensure  its  surrender.  But  if  the  town 
holds  out,  and  the  mutineers  occupy  the  houses,  we  should  seize  the 
Jumma  Musjid  and  the  other  mosque  in  the  Chandni  Chouk,  which  will 
serve  as  a  fortress  for  our  troops. 

•  The  Lahore  gate  of  the  city  leads  down  the  Chandni  Chouk  to  the 
Palace.  .  It  is  some  eighty  feet  wide.  Secure  this  street  and  the  Jumma 
Musjid,  and  the  mutineers  cannot  maintain  themselves. 

No  news  for  some  days  from  below.  .  .  .  The  Pandis  will  bolt  by  the 
Nigambode  gate  across  the  Doab  for  Rohilkund.  We  should  have  cav- 
alry on  that  side  to  cut  them  up.  Two  hundred  and  forty  Peshawur 
horse  start  to-night  under  Major  Stokes.     They  are  rather  a  good  lot. 

But,  even  now,  though  it  seemed  that  the  end  could  not  long  be 
deferred,  matters  were  not  going  on  satisfactorily  at  Delhi.  The 
sickly  season  had  begun  in  good  earnest.  The  cantonments,  never 
healthy,  were  this  year  likely  to  be  more  than  usually  deadly,  for 
the  banks  of  the  canal  had  been  broken  and  the  country  much 
flooded.  In  the  pressure  of  work  and  worry  nearly  all  sanitary 
precautions  had  been  neglected.  The  carcases  of  men  and  ani- 
mals were  lying  about  in  every  direction  unburied,  and  as  the  floods 
subsided  and  the  sun  poured  down  in  its  fury  on  the  putrid  mass, 
diseases  of  every  kind,  ague,  and  fever,  and  cholera — which  last 
had  never  been  quite  absent — began  to  work  redoubled  havoc  in 
the  camp,  and  rendered  a  large  portion  of  the  men  unfit  for  duty. 
One  regiment,  which  had  come  in  six  hundred  strong,  had,  from 
these  and  other  causes,  in  the  course  of  three  weeks,  sunk  to  two 
hundred  and  forty-two  effectives  !  Nicholson,  who  was  in  daily 
communication  with  Sir  John  Lawrence  during  this  period,  is  loud 
in  his  complaints  of  almost  everything  that  was  done  or  not  done  ; 
and  as  his  complaints  are,  to  a  great  extent,  borne  out  by  letters  of 
Neville  Chamberlain  and  others  before  me,  we  may  conclude  that 
they  were,  on  the  whole,  well  grounded,  and  are  not  to  put  them 
down,  as  otherwise  we  might  be  inclined  to  do,  either  to  his  impa- 
tience of  restraint  or  his  restless  energy.  The  *  politicals  '  on  whose 
knowledge  of  the  country  he  thought  he  had  a  right  to  depend  for 
information  which  would  enable  him  to  move  and  to  strike  with 
effect,  were,  he  repeatedly  complains,  not  up  to  the  mark,  and  he 
expected  Sir  John  Lawrence,  who  had  no  power  at  all  in  the  mat- 
ter, to  supersede  them  at  once. 

I  don't  exaggerate  when  I  say,  that  had  I  had  a  decent  Political  officer 
with  me  to  get  me  a  little  ordinary  information,  I  should  have  smashed 
the  Bareilly  brigade  the  next  day  to  the  affair  at  Nujuffghur.     As  it  was, 


i857  SIEGE  AND   CAPTURE  OF   DELHI.  175 

I  had  no  information,  not  even  a  guide  that  I  did  not  picl<  up  for  myself 
on  the  road,  and  had  I  obeyed  my  instructions  and  gone  to  Bahadurgurh, 
the  expedition  would  have  been  a  fruitless  one.  ...  It  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive two  men  in  their  position  with  less  local  knowledge  and  influence, 
and  less  idea  of  the  service  expected  of  them,  thanGreathed  and  Metcalfe. 
Should  I  escape  the  storm,  and  have  to  go  out  with  a  Column  after- 
wards, I  must — unless  you  can  supply  a  competent  man — be  my  own 
Political  Agent.  I  would  rather  have  2,000  men  and  be  so,  than  4,000 
and  be  hampered  with  an  incapable.  If  you  agree  with  me,  you  must 
authorise  it,  however  ;  for  Wilson  will  take  no  responsibility  on  himself, 
and  it  appears  to  me  that  he  is  becoming  jealous  of  me,  lest  I  should 
earn  more  than  my  share  of  nvdo?.  He  will  not  even  show  me  the  plan 
of  assault  now,  though  I  feel  pretty  sure  his  nervousness  will  make  him 
do  so  before  the  time  comes. 

These  complaints  against  the  General  do  not  seem  to  have  been 
altogether  ill-founded.  The  concurrent  testimony  before  me  is  too 
strong  to  allow  of  doubt  respecting  them.  General  Wilson  had 
been  a  vast  improvement  on  former  generals,  but  his  health  seems 
to  have  failed  him  under  the  long  strain,  and  he  had  not  the  nerve 
or  the  moral  courage  necessary  for  the  tremendous  crisis  which  had 
at  length  arrived.  Just  now  he  was  irascible  and  inaccessible, 
moody  and  capricious.  One  day  he  was  all  in  favour  of  instant  ac- 
tion, the  next,  and  the  next,  and  the  next,  he  was  for  postponing  it 
indefinitely  or  even  abandoning  the  siege  altogether. 

Wilson  (writes  Nicholson  on  August  22)  says  that  he  mhII  assume  the 
offensive  on  the  arrival  of  the  heavy  guns,  but  he  says  it  in  an  indecisive 
kind  of  way  which  makes  me  doubt  if  he  will  do  so,  if  not  kept  up  to  the 
mark.  Do  you,  therefore,  keep  him  up  to  it.  He  is  not  at  all  equal  to 
the  crisis,  and  I  believe  he  feels  it  himself. 

Curreniem  quoque  instigavit 

might  be  said  of  such  advice  when  given  to  such  a  man.  Sir  John 
Lawrence  did  not  need  to  be  reminded  to  keep  other  people  *  up  to 
the  mark.'  From  the  first  outbreak  at  Meerut  to  that  very  day  he 
had  never  ceased  to  urge  on  each  successive  general,  Anson,  Bar- 
nard, Reed,  Wilson,  the  supreme  necessity  for  bold  forward  action. 
Auctor  ego  audendi  might  well  have  been  his  motto,  and  the  letter  to 
General  Wilson,  which  I  am  about  to  quote,  written  when  the  days 
of  Dellii  seemed  to  be  already  numbered,  will,  I  think,  in  its  force 
and  its  grasp  of  the  situation  in  all  its  aspects,  vividly  recall  the 
masterly  series  of  letters  written  by  him  to  General  Anson,  when  it 
appeared  to  be  an  open  question  whether  there  should  be  any  ad- 
vance at  all  upon  the  revolted  city. 


176  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

Lahore:  August  29,   1S57. 

My  Dear  General, — Wilde's  regiment  will  be  at  Umballa  as  soon  as 
you  can  receive  this  letter;  the  Jumnioo  troops  a  day  later.  All  will  be 
at  Delhi  by  the  7th  or  8th  of  September,  if  you  resolve  to  have  them.  I 
hope  you  will  then  be  strong  enough  to  attack  the  city.  I  wish  to  urge 
you  to  do  nothing  which  sound  policy  does  not  dictate,  but  I  cannot  but 
add  that  if  the  military  means  be  sufficient,  it  is  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance to  make  your  attack.  I  believe,  myself,  that  if  you  once  establish 
yourself  in  force  inside  the  town,  the  resistance  will  not  be  formidable. 
I  believe  that  the  mutineers  will  break  up  and  disperse,  many  throwing 
away  their  arms.  The  most  desperate  may  keep  together  and  make  for 
Gwaiior. 

But  even  if  they  attempt  to  defend  the  town,  they  will  fail  to  do  so  with 
any  effect.  The  people  have  suffered  too  much  to  side  with  them,  and 
it  is  not  a  place  so  easily  defended  as  people  suppose.  The  whole  east- 
ern side  from  the  Cashmere  to  the  Delh  gate  is  wide  and  open.  The 
Palace  is  the  only  strong  building  in  this  quarter,  and  this,  in  the  first 
instance,  after  getting  in  might  be  masked.  Two  or  three  days  consecu- 
tive shelling  will  make  it  too  hot  for  its  inmates.  All  the  main  streets 
in  Delhi  are  wide  and  straight,  leading  to  the  chief  gates.  In  the  event 
of  resistance,  the  troops  could  hold  the  strong  points  such  as  the  Jumma 
Musjid,  the  ground  between  the  Cashmere  gate  the  Magazine  and  Col- 
lege, the  Begum  Sombres  garden,  the  King's  garden  close  to  it,  and 
the  mosque  in  the  middle  of  the  Chandni  Chouk  with  perfect  safety.  If 
the  whole  plan  be  well  arranged  before  the  assault  and  explained  to  the 
officers,  and  they  only  keep  the  troops  within  control,  I  am  persuaded 
that  no  formidable  opposition  will  ensue  when  they  are  once  inside. 

These  seem  to  me  very  strong  reasons  for  assaulting  as  soon  as  prac- 
ticable. Every  day's  delay  is  fraught  with  danger.  Every  day  disaffec- 
tion and  mutiny  spread.  Every  day  adds  to  the  danger  of  the  Native 
princes  taking  part  against  us.  In  the  Punjab  we  are  by  no  means 
strong.  Peshawur  is  a  political  volcano  which  may  explode  any  day. 
Out  of  three  regiments  of  European  infantry  and  a  large  force  of  artillery, 
we  have  barely  1,000  men  fit  for  service.  All  the  rest  are  prostrated  by 
fever.  We  have  8,000  Hindustani  troops  to  guard.  One  regiment,  the 
51st,  mutinied  only  yesterday.  It  is  possible  that  we  may  have  the 
Afghans  on  our  heads  one  of  these  days.  If  anything  happened  to  the 
Ameer,  I  think  we  certainly  should  have  them  down.  The  sickly  season 
is  only  now  commencing.  Throughout  the  country  we  are  standing  at 
bay,  watching  and  overav,'ing  the  Hindustanis,  by  a  handful  of  Europeans 
and  a  few  Sikh  corps  mostly  composed  of  recruits.  Day  after  day  we 
hear  of  fresh  corps  mutinying.  In  Central  India  our  power  is  a  mere 
shadow.  In  the  Bombay  Presidency  affairs  are  in  a  most  critical  state. 
In  Oude,  General  Havelock  can  barely  maintain  the  struggle. 

I  see  little  prospect  of  your  being  reinforced  for  a  very  long  time  from 
below.  The  autumn  is  notoriously  unhealthy  at  Delhi.  There  is  even 
clanger  in  keeping  so  large  a  body  of  troops  together  for  a  considerable 


1857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  177 

period  under  present  circumstances.  Tiie  Gwalior  troops  will  be  over 
the  Chumbul  before  long,  and  bring  large  reinforcements  to  the  muti- 
neers. For  all  these  reasons  I  would  strike  as  early  as  possible.  Every 
consideration  points  to  prompt  action. 

I  would  further  recommend  that  you  should  arrange  with  the  Political 
officers  as  to  yOur  future  course  after  Delhi  falls.  A  force  will,  of  course, 
at  once  follow  the  main  bodies  of  the  insurgents.  A  Movable  Column 
will,  doubtless,  cross  into  the  Gangetic  Doab  and  sweep  the  country. 
Small  Columns  will  be  required  to  move  about  the  Delhi  territory,  to 
punish  insurgents  and  disarm  the  country.  I  would  suggest  that  the 
force  left  at  Delhi  should  occupy  the  Palace. 

We  shall  not  require  any  portion  of  our  Punjab  regiments  nor  of  the 
Artillery  which  has  gone  down  from  the  Punjab.  But,  if  possible,  I 
should  like  to  see  one  European  regiment  sent  back.  With  its  aid  we 
shall  do  well  until  more  European  troops  are  available. 

The  arrival  of  such  a  letter  must  have  done  as  much  as  the 
arrival  of  the  Siege  Train  itself,  which  took  place  about  the  same 
time,  to  ensure  the  adoption  of  decisive  measures.  But  Sir  John 
Lawrence  was  not  willing  to  rest  upon  his  oars  even  now.  He 
endeavoured  to  '  keep  the  General  up  to  the  mark  '  by  working  on 
him  through  the  most  energetic  spirits  around  him,  Chamberlain 
and  Nicholson,  Daly  and  Norman. 

I  trust  (he  says  to  Norman)  that  General  Wilson  will  commence  work 
in  earnest,  directly  the  Siege  Train  arrives,  and  assault  the  place  as 
soon  as  practicable.  Every  consideration  dictates  this  course.  I  have 
written  and  pointed  out  all  this  to  General  Wilson.  I  can  do  no  more. 
It  is  you  fellows  about  him  who  have  the  means  of  influencing  him.  If 
we  delay  for  reinforcements  from  below,  God  only  knows  what  may  hap- 
pen. Half  the  force  may  be  prostrated  by  sickness.  I  am  sure  that 
Chamberlain  and  Nicholson  will  be  in  favour  of  action.  Indeed  I  cannot 
well  believe  that  any  man  of  experience  and  knowledge  of  India  could 
hold  any  other  opinion.  Every  day's  delay  only  complicates  matters  and 
adds  to  our  difficulties.  Every  day  more  regiments  are  breaking  out, 
and,  before  long,  we  shall  have  no  Native  army  left. 

To  Hervey  Greathed  he  writes  in  like  manner : 

I  hope  you  are  in  favour  of  vigorous  and  offensive  measures  as  soon 
as  the  Siege  Train  reaches  Delhi.  To  my  mind  more  danger  will  arise 
from  delay  than  from  assaulting.  It  is  also  good  policy  striking  while 
the  enemy  are  depressed.  Have  you  any  orders  from  i\Ir.  Colvin  or  the 
Supreme  Government  as  to  the  course  to  be  pursued  after  the  fall  of 
Delhi  ?  It  will  be  a  great  point  to  follow  up  the  blow  v/ith  vigour,  so  as 
not  to  let  the  fugitive  brigades  rally  and  make  a  stand.  .  .  .  We  are  all 
well  here.  But  sickness  is  very  great  at  Peshawur.  Should  the  Afghans 
VOL.  II.  — 12 


178  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

come  down,  we  should  be  awkwardly  placed.  Delhi  cannot  fall  too 
soon.  There  are  still  7,000  Hindustani  troops  at  Peshawur,  4,000  of 
whom  are  armed. 

But  however  anxious  Lawrence  might  be  for  the  assault,  he  was 
not  anxious,  as  were  some  of  his  advisers,  that  as  much  blood  as 
possible  should  be  shed  during  and  after  it.  He  w-as  eager  to  save 
the  Sikhs,  who  were  in  Delhi,  from  sharing  the  fate  of  the  Sepoys, 
and  also  to  draw  a  distinction  between  those  Sepoys  who  had 
murdered  their  officers  and  committed  other  atrocities,  and  those 
who  had  been  drawn  into  the  current  half  against  their  will.  Many 
letters  passed  between  him,  Wilson,  and  Nicholson  on  these  sub- 
jects. Wilson  was  anxious  to  receive  the  overtures  of  such  half- 
innocent  corps,  but  seemed  disinclined  to  take  upon  himself  the 
responsibility  of  doing  so.  He  turned  to  John  Lawrence  for  advice, 
and  here  is  the  answer  he  received  : — 

As  you  are  aware,  I  have  no  authority  whatever  at  Delhi  or  in  Delhi 
matters.  But  I  consider  every  officer  ought  to  aid  the  State  to  the  best 
of  his  ability  and  to  assume  responsibility  where  that  course  is  advisable. 
If,  therefore,  you  deem  it  expedient  to  receive  the  overtures  of  corps  or 
portions  of  corps,  which  have  not  murdered  Europeans,  and  find  it 
necessary  to  give  distinct  pledges  for  pardon,  I  am  quite  prepared  to 
share  the  responsibility.  ,  .  .  The  combination  has  been  so  extensive, 
the  mutiny  so  general,  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  carry  on  a  war  of 
vengeance  against  all.  We  cannot  destroy  all  the  mutineers  who  have 
fought  against  us.  The  sooner  we  open  the  door  for  escape  to  the  least 
guilty,  the  better  for  all  parties. 

Nicholson  quite  agreed  with  his  chief  in  these  matters.  He  was 
ever  panting  for  action,  straining  like  a  hound  within  the  leashes 
when  he  sees  his  quarry  slipped  close  before  him.  But  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  in  his  letters  to  John  Lawrence,  amidst  his  expres- 
sions of  impatience  at  what  he  considered  to  be  the  incompetency 
of  those  who  held  the  chief  command,  his  tender  regard  for  the 
interests  of  men  in  whom,  even  if  he  had  only  recently  come  to 
know  them,  he  discerned  real  merit  or  promise  for  the  future.  I 
have  already  spoken  of  his  care  for  Alexander  Taylor.  Here  is 
another  sample  : — 

I  offered  Randall  of  the  5gth  the  Adjutancy  of  Stafford's  corps,  but  he 
wishes  to  serve  here,  though  on  his  bare  subaltern's  pay.  Bear  this  in 
mind,  if  anything  happens  to  me,  for  it  is  not  every  man  who  declines 
Staff  employ  that  he  may  serve  in  the  trenches  on  his  regimental  allow- 
ances and  without  increase  of  rank.  Randall  is  moreover  a  very  steady, 
intelligent,  conscientious  fellow. 


i857  SIEGE    AND    CAPTURE    OF    DELHI.  179 

Nor  is  it  without  interest  to  remark  that  the  officer  whom 
Nicholson,  on  the  strength  of  what  he  had  seen  of  him  at  the 
Trimmoo  Ghat  and  in  the  trenches  before  Delhi,  thus  warmly- 
recommended,  with  almost  his  latest  breath,  to  his  Chief,  became 
aide-de-camp  to  that  Chief  when  he  had  risen  to  be  Governor- 
General,  was  married  to  his  eldest  daughter,  and  received  from  him, 
only  a  few  days  before  the  end  of  his  life,  the  sacred  commission — 
which  he  has  now  handed  on  to  me  and  I  have,  in  my  last  chapter, 
attempted  to  discharge — of  putting  before  the  world  exactly  what 
Lord  Lawrence  had  or  had  not  proposed  with  regard  to  the  aban- 
donment of  Peshawur. 

The  Siege  Train  arrived  on  September  4,  and,  close  behind  it, 
came  the  Jummoo  troops  and  Wilde's  regiment.  And  now  John 
Lawrence  had  done  all  that  he  could  do,  and  everything  was  ready 
for  the  last  act  of  the  great  drama  :  everything,  I  would  rather  say, 
except  the  general  in  command. 

The  Siege  Train  arrived  at  Delhi  yesterday  (says  John  Lawrence, 
gleefully,  to  Bartle  Frere).  We  ought  to  have  Delhi  in  our  possession 
within  the  next  ten  days.  We  should  have  it  did  Nicholson  command, 
...  I  hope  to  hear  of  our  beginning  the  attack  to-morrow  with  a  salvo 
of  thirty  heavy  guns  at  least.  I  feel  sanguine  of  success,  and  that  shortly. 
We  cannot  afford  to  delay. 

And  writing  once  more  to  Lord  Canning  on  September  6,  he 
says,  in  no  boastful  spirit,  but  with  a  just  appreciation  of  what  he 
and  his  province  had  done  towards  making  what  each  successive 
General  had  called  the  '  gambler's  throw  '  to  be  no  gambler's  throw 
at  all,  but  a  matter  of  at  least  tolerable  certainty  : 

I  trust  that  the  bombardment  will  commence  to-night  or  to-morrow, 
and  that,  by  God's  help,  Delhi  will  fall  upon  the  nth.  On  that  day 
fifty-four  years  ago  we  first  took  it.  Everything  that  we  could  do  has 
been  done  to  aid  the  army  before  Delhi.  We  have  sent  every  man  we 
could  spare — perhaps  more.  We  have  raised  for  them  Pioneers,  Infantry, 
Cavalry.  Nothing  that  we  could  think  of  has  been  wanting.  Even  the 
sand-bags  for  their  batteries  have  been  made  up  and  sent  down. 

A  letter  of  Nicholson's,  written  on  September  7,  takes  us  behind 
the  scenes  for  a  moment. 

The  Engineers  have  consulted  me  about  the  plan  of  attack,  though 
Wilson  has  not.  They  tell  me  they  proposed  to  him  that  I  should  be 
consulted,  and  that  he  maintained  a  chilling  silence.  I  imagine  it  is,  as 
I  supposed,  that  he  is  afraid  of  being  thought  to  be  influenced  by  me.  I 
care   little,    however,    whether   he    receives   my    suggestions   direct   or 


I  So  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1S57 

through  the  Engineers.  Like  IJarnard,  he  talks  al^out  the  'gaml)ler's 
throw.'  I  think,  however,  we  have  a  right  to  hope  for  success,  and  I 
trust  that,  ere  another  week  passes,  our  flag  will  be  flying  from  the 
Palace  minarets.  Wilson  has  told  me  that  he  intends  to  nominate  me 
for  Governor,  for  which  I  am  obliged  ;  though  I  had  rather  he  had  told 
me  that  he  intended  to  give  me  command  of  the  column  of  pursuit. 
Before  Delhi  :  August  (September)  7,  1857. 

It  is  significant  that,  in  his  excitement,  Nicholson  dates  this  and 
other  letters  written  during  the  final  bombardment  '  August  '  instead 
of  'September.'  The  month  of  August  must  have  passed  slowly 
enough  with  a  man  of  his  impetuous  temperament.  But  he  had 
forgotten  all  about  it  now  in  the  rapture  of  the  approaching  con- 
flict. 

I  just  write  a  line  to  confirm  what  you  will  have  heard  from  Wilson. 
We  break  ground  with  No.  i,  heavy  battery,  at  six  hundred  and  fifty 
yards  to-night.  Nos.  2  and  3  to-morrow  night  at  five  hundred  and  fifty 
and  three  hundred  and  fifty.  Batter  the  9th  and  go  in  on  the  loth.  I 
can't  give  you  the  plan  of  attack  lest  the  letter  should  fall  into  other  hands. 
Wilson's  head  is  going.  He  sajs  so  himself,  and  it  is  quite  evident  that 
he  speaks  the  truth.  .  .  .  Pandy  is  in  very  low  spirits,  and  evidently 
thinks  he  has  made  a  mistake. 

But  the  eager  excitement  which  caused  Nicholson  to  be  out  by  a 
month,  in  his  recollection  of  the  past,  made  him  also  rather  too 
sanguine,  as  the  next  letters  show,  in  his  calculations  for  the  future. 

Before  Delhi  :  August  (September)  9,  1857. 
The  batteries  could  not  be  got  ready  in  time  this  morning,  so  we  are 
only  silencing  the  Moree  to-day.  To-morrow  we  breach  and  bombard, 
and  assault  on  the  nth,  which,  by  a  strange  coincidence,  is  the  anni- 
versary of  our  former  capture.  Many  thanks  for  the  Leia  commission- 
ership.  What  did  poor  old  Ross  (the  late  commissioner)  die  of?  Your 
letter  to  Greathed  has  had  the  effect  of  brightening  up  both  him  and 
Metcalfe. 

But,  even  now,  Nicholson  was  too  sanguine  in  his  expectations. 

There  was  more  delay,  and  on   September  1 1   he  wrote  another 

letter,  to  which  a  melancholy  interest  attaches — for  it  was  the  last 

that  he  wrote  to  his  chief,  and  nearly  the  last  that  he  wrote  to 

anyone. 

Before  Delhi :  September  ir,  1857. 

My  dear  Lawrence, — There  has  yet  been  another  day's  delay  with 
the  Batteries,  but  I  do  not  see  how  there  can  possibly  be  another.  The 
game  is  completely  in  our  hands.     We  only  want  a  player  to  move  the 


i857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF   DELHI.  l8r 

pieces.  Fortunately,  after  making  all  kinds  of  objections  and  obstruc- 
tions, and  even  threatening-  more  than  once  to  withdraw  the  guns  and 
abandon  the  attempt,  Wilson  has  made  everything  over  to  the  Engi- 
neers, and  they,  and  they  alone,  will  deserve  the  credit  of  taking  Delhi. 
Had  Wilson  carried  out  his  threat  of  withdrawing  the  guns,  I  was  quite 
prepared  to  appeal  to  the  army  to  set  him  aside  and  elect  a  successor  ! 
I  have  seen  lots  of  useless  generals  in  my  day,  but  such  an  ignorant, 
croaking  obstructive  as  he  is,  I  have  never,  hitherto,  met  with,  and 
nothing  will  induce  me  to  serve  a  day  under  his  personal  command 
after  the  fall  of  this  place.  The  purport  of  his  last  message  in  reply  to 
the  Engineers  ran  thus  :  '  I  disagree  with  the  Engineers  entirely.  I 
foresee  great,  if  not  insuperable,  difficulties  in  the  plan  they  propose. 
But,  as  I  have  no  other  plan  myself,  I  yield  to  the  urgent  remonstrances 
of  the  chief  engineer.'  The  above  are  almost  the  very  words  used  by 
him,  and  yet  he  has,  actually,  never  even  examined  the  ground  on  which 
the  Engineers  proposed  to  erect  the  breaching  batteries  I  I  believe  the 
Meerut  catastrophe  was  more  his  fault  than  Hewitt's.  And  by  all  ac- 
counts he  was  driven  into  fighting  at  the  Hindun,  and  could  not  help 
himself.  The  same  may  be  said  now.  He  is  allowing  the  Engineers  to 
undertake  active  operations  simply  because  he  knows  the  army  will  no 
longer  put  up  with  inactivity. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

J.  Nicholson. 

With  this  characteristically  violent  utterance  Nicholson's  '  pen 
and  ink  work,'  the  work  which  he  so  much  disliked,  ended. 
The  work  of  his  trusty  sword  remained.  The  news  that  he  had 
been  nominated,  on  Sir  John  Lawrence's  recommendation,  to  the 
command  of  the  city  after  it  should  be  taken  ;  that  he  had  then 
been  recommended  by  him  for  a  post  which  he  preferred  even  to 
the  command  of  the  city,  the  command  of  the  column  of  pursuit, 
and  finally,  when  peaceful  times  should  have  returned,  to  the  Com- 
missionership  of  Leia,  reached  him  in  rapid  succession,  shortly 
before  the  assault,  and  must  have  convinced  him,  if  he  had  ever 
really  doubted  it,  of  his  Chief's  enthusiastic  appreciation  for  his 
services.  '  I  trust,'  said  Sir  John  Lawrence  in  the  last  letter  which 
he  was  ever  to  write  to  him  (September  9),  *  that  you  will  be  in 
Delhi  when  this  reaches,  and  that  you  will  escape  the  dangers  of 
the  assault  and  gain  increased  honour.'  Nicholson  was  to  gain 
'  increased  honour,*  but  not  by  holding  the  Commissionership  of 
Leia,  or  by  governing  the  city  which  he  had  done  so  much  to  cap- 
ture, or  by  leading  the  column  of  pursuit. 

The  minuter  details  of  the  bombardment,  the  assault,  and  the 
capture  of  Delhi  lie  beyond  my  scope,  and  it  must  suffice  to  give  a 
mere  sketch  of  the  crowning  operations  of  a  siege,  which,  from  first 


1 82  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

to  last,  in  all  its  attendant  circumstances,  is  almost  unique  in  the 
history  of  modern  war.  The  part  of  the  wall  selected  for  our 
attack  was  that  which  faced  the  Ridge,  and  which,  extending  from 
the  Jumma  to  the  Lahore  gate,  formed  a  third  part  of  the  whole 
circumference.  It  included  the  Moree,  the  Cashmere  and  the 
Water  Bastions,  each  of  which  contained  from  ten  to  fourteen 
heavy  guns,  each  was,  in  great  part,  our  own  handiwork,  and  each, 
during  the  last  two  months,  had  poured  forth  a  storm  of  shot  and 
shell,  upon  their  original  constructors,  without  the  intermission  of 
a  single  day.  The  connecting  wall  between  the  BastionS  had  not 
been  constructed  to  carry  heavy  guns,  but  it  was  twenty-four  feet 
high  and  twelve  thick,  and  the  labour  of  ten  or  twenty  thousand 
hands  which  could  have  been  had,  at  any  time,  for  the  asking, 
might,  in  the  space  of  a  few  days,  have  thrown  up  a  rampart  behind 
it,  which,  armed  with  a  mere  fraction  of  the  guns  the  place  con- 
tained, would  have  made  the  whole  impregnable.  Why  had  not 
the  besieged  done  this  long  before,  or  why  did  they  not  attempt  it 
even  now  ?  Had  the  Mutiny  brought  to  the  front  a  single  military 
genius  at  Delhi,  as  it  did  when  it  was  too  late  in  other  parts  of 
India  ;  had  there  been  a  General  of  even  second-rate  powers,  who 
could  have  made  the  most  of  his  appliances  and  inspired  the  troops 
with  implicit  confidence  in  him,  the  fall  of  the  place  must  have 
been  indefinitely  postponed — postponed,  at  all  events,  till  a  regular 
investment  and  a  regular  siege  were  possible. 

Outside  the  wall  ran  a  ditch  twenty-five  feet  wide  and  sixteen 
feet  deep,  which  might  well  form  the  common  grave  of  any  force 
attempting  to  cross  it  before  the  parapets  and  bastions  above  should 
have  been  swept  clear  of  their  defenders.  The  besiegers  of  a  strongly 
fortified  place  ought,  it  has  been  laid  down  on  high  authority,  to 
outnumber  the  besieged  in  the  proportion  of  three  to  one.  At 
Delhi  this  proportion  was  reversed  or  more  than  reversed.  The 
besieged  army  numbered  at  least  40,000  men  ;  the  besiegers,  now 
that  the  last  man  had  come  from  the  Punjab,  only  11,000.  And 
of  these  not  more  than  3,300  were  Europeans,  while  the  Jummoo 
contingent,  2,000  strong,  had  only  just  arrived  in  camp,  and  was 
regarded  with  suspicion  and  dislike  by  some  of  the  authorities.  Our 
heavy  guns  were  only  54  in  number,  while  those  in  Delhi  amounted 
to  300.  Of  Artillerymen  we  had  only  580,  and  many  even  of  these 
belonged  to  the  Horse  Artillery,  and  had  to  be  called  off  from  their 
proper  duties  to  work  in  the  batteries  ;  while,  to  eke  out  their  scanty 
numbers,  it  was  found  necessary  to  call  for  volunteers  from  the 
Lancers  and  the  Carabineers,  men  who  had  never  handled  a  gun 


i857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  183 

before,  and  had  to  take  their  first  lessons  in  artillery  practice  ex- 
posed to  constant  fire  from  the  enemy.  A  hard  apprenticeship,  but 
eagerly  embraced  and  nobly  discharged  ! 

Such  was  the  general  outlook  of  the  siege  when  the  last  man  and 
the  last  gun  from  the  Punjab  arrived  upon  the  ground.  What  won- 
der if  the  General  on  whom  the  responsibility  really  rested  had 
misgivings,  even  to  the  last  moment,  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  stepf 
into  which  he  had  been  persuaded  by  the  eagerness  of  the  Engi- 
neers ;  and  what  wonder  that  he  needed  to  be  reminded  by  those 
who  were  not  hampered  by  any  such  overmastering  burden,  that 
India  had  been  won  and  held  in  defiance  of  all  the  laws  of  war,  and 
that  Delhi  need  not  be  the  one  exception  to  the  rule  ? 

It  was  on  the  evening  of  September  7  that  the  ground  was  broken. 
On  that  night,  under  the  personal  direction  of  Alexander  Taylor — 
a  man  whose  antecedents  no  one  of  my  readers  is  likely  to  have 
forgotten — the  first  battery  was  run  up,  seven  hundred  yards  from 
the  Moree  Bastion.  Animated  and  inspired  by  his  presence,  the 
men  worked  for  their  lives — for  they  knew  what  the  day  would 
bring  forth.  But  in  spite  of  all  their  efforts,  the  first  streak  of  light 
found  the  battery  armed  with  only  one  gun,  upon  which,  and  upon 
each  of  its  fellows,  as,  one  after  the  other,  they  were  brought  into 
position,  there  rained  down  a  pitiless  fire  from  the  opposing  bastion. 
At  last  the  battery  was  complete,  and  then  the  masonry  of  the 
fortifications  of  the  city  began  to  fly.  It  was  a  new  and  strange 
sensation.  The  time  of  patient  waiting,  of  repelling  attacks  which 
were  incessantly  renewed,  of  Cadmean  victories  over  a  foe  who 
seemed  to  possess  unlimited  powers  of  recovery  and  boundless  re- 
cruiting-grounds, was  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  the  time  for  reprisals 
had  arrived. 

During  the  five  days  and  nights  which  followed,  three  other  bat- 
teries were  constructed  under  the  same,  or  even  greater  difficulties. 
One  of  them  was  only  one  hundred  and  sixty  yards  from  the  Water 
Bastion,  and  the  heavy  guns  had  to  be  dragged  up  to  it,  through 
the  open,  under  a  crushing  fire  of  musketry  ;  'a  feat  of  arms,'  says 
Sir  Henry  Norman,  'almost  unparalleled  in  war.' 

With  the  deeds  of  skill,  gallantry,  endurance,  and  devotion,  which 
distinguished  the  six  days  of  the  bombardment,  the  names  of  Baird 
Smith,  the  Chief  Engineer,  who  prepared  all  the  plans  ;  of  Alex- 
ander Taylor,  who  superintended  their  execution,  and  seemed  to 
be  everything  and  everywhere  ;  of  Brind  and  Tombs,  of  Campbell 
and  Scott,  who  were  in  command  of  the  respective  batteries,  will 
always  be   honourably  bound  up.     The  heat,   the  exposure,  the 


1 84  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  ib57 

unrest,  the  extremity  of  the  peril,  seemed  only  to  lend  them  fresh 
strength  for  their  work.  On  the  12th  all  four  batteries  were  able, 
for  the  first  time,  to  play  at  once  upon  the  walls  of  the  city ;  and 
the  first  discharge  of  their  concentrated  fire  must  have  made  the 
most  sanguine  among  the  mutineers  to  feel  that  the  game  of  mutiny 
had  been  all  but  played  out.  Fifty-four  guns  and  mortars  belched 
Iforth  havoc  on  the  doomed  city  ;  and  ringing  cheers  arose  from  our 
men  as  the  smoke  of  each  salvo  cleared  away  and  showed  the 
formidable  bastions  crumbling  into  ruins,  and  whole  yards  of  the 
parapets  torn  away  by  the  bursting  shells,  while  the  defenders  were 
driven  to  seek  shelter,  if  indeed  they  cared  to  find  it,  far  into  the 
interior  of  the  city.  Not  for  one  moment,  during  the  next  forty- 
eight  hours,  did  the  whistling  of  bullets  and  the  roar  of  artillery 
cease.  The  worn-out  gunners — their  places,  meanwhile,  being  filled 
by  volunteers — would,  sometimes,  throw  themselves  down  to  snatch 
a  few  moments  of  hurried,  but  profound,  sleep  beneath  their  very 
guns  ;  and  then,  springing  to  their  feet  again,  would  pound  aAvay 
with  redoubled  vigour.  The  coolness  and  the  courage  of  the  old 
Sikh  Artillerymen,  who  had  been  picked  out  by  Sir  John  Lawrence 
in  person,  and  of  the  despised  Muzbi  Sikhs,  whom  he  had  also  sent 
down  to  Delhi,  were  as  conspicuous  as  that  of  the  Europeans  them- 
selves. And  the  passive  endurance  of  the  water-carriers  and  native 
servants,  who,  amidst  the  hatreds  of  colour  and  of  race,  which  the 
fierce  conflict  had  engendered,  had  not  always  received  the  best  of 
treatment  at  their  masters'  hands  and  were  now  expected  to  wait 
on  those  same  masters  amidst  storms  of  shot  and  shell,  was,  per- 
haps, more  wonderful  than  either. 

The  enemy,  though  they  had  been  driven  down  from  the  parapets, 
and  though  many  of  their  guns  on  the  bastions  had  been  dis- 
mounted, still  fought  on  with  the  courage  of  despair.  They  ran  out 
light  guns  which  enfiladed  our  batteries.  They  filled  the  water- 
courses and  gardens  in  front  of  the  city  with  sharpshooters  who 
picked  off  our  gunners  at  their  work,  and  riddled  the  mantelets  with 
bullet-holes.  They  even,  on  one  occasion,  attempted  to  attack  us 
in  the  rear.  And  they  began,  when  it  was  all  too  late,  to  raise  a 
rampart  behind  the  breaches,  which  would  soon  have  made  the 
place  impregnable. 

On  the  night  of  the  13th  it  seemed  that  the  bombardment  had 
pretty  well  done  its  work  ;  and  four  young  engineer  officers — 
Greathed,  Home,  Medley,  and  Lang — creeping  down  through  the 
gardens,  amongst  and  behind  the  enemy's  skirmishers,  descended 
into  the  ditch,  examined  the  breaches,  and  returned  with  the  report 


i857  SIEGE    AND    CAPTURE    OF    DELHI.  185 

that  they  were  difficult  but  practicable.  The  knowledge  of  what 
was  going  on  behind  the  breaches  led  the  General  and  his  Council 
of  War  to  decide  that  the  enterprise  should  be  attempted  while 
'  practicable  '  it  still  remained.  And  forthwith  the  thrilling  order, 
which  had  been  so  long  and  so  eagerly  expected,  and  which  was  to 
be  the  message  of  death  to  so  many  of  the  most  eager  of  the  ex- 
pectants, flew  from  man  to  man  throughout  the  camp  : — '  The. 
assault  at  three  o'clock  this  morning.'  It  was  the  'witching  hour, 
but  not  of  still  midnight.  The  plans  had  all  been  laid  beforehand, 
and  the  three  hours  of  suspense  and  preparation  which  remained 
passed  away  slowly  enough. 

Long  before  the  hour  struck  our  men  were  at  Ludlow  Castle, 
the  appointed  rendezvous,  which,  curiously  enough,  happened  many 
years  before  to  have  been  the  residence  of  John  Lawrence.  The 
assaulting  columns  were  four  in  number.  The  first,  it  had  been 
arranged,  was  to  storm  the  main  breach  of  the  Kashmere  Bastion  ; 
the  second,  the  Water  Bastion  ;  the  third,  when  the  Kashmere 
Gate  should  have  been  blown  in  by  a  small  party  each  man  of 
whom  carried  his  life  and  a  powder-bag  in  his  hand,  was  to  enter 
by  the  opening  ;  while  the  fourth  column,  to  the  extreme  right,  was 
first  to  attempt  to  dislodge  the  mutineers  who  were  encamped  in 
large  numbers  and  in  a  strong  position  in  the  suburb  of  Kissengunge, 
and  then  to  force  an  entrance  by  the  Lahore  Gate. 

To  Nicholson  fell,  as  of  right,  the  post  of  honor.  He  had  been 
sent  down  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  with  orders  '  to  take  Delhi  ;  '  and 
Delhi  the  whole  army  was  willing  that  he  and  no  one  else  should 
take.  He  was  therefore  to  head  the  first  column  in  person,  as  well 
as  to  direct  the  general  operations  of  the  assault.  'Our  batteries,' 
says  an  eye-witness,  '  redoubled  their  roar,  while  the  columns  were 
taking  up  their  respective  positions,  throwing  shells  to  drive  the 
enemy  away  as  far  as  possible  from  the  breaches.  The  morning 
was  just  breaking  ;  the  thunder  of  our  artillery  was  at  its  loudest, 
when,  all  at  once,  it  hushed.     Everyone  could  hear  his  heart  beat. 

The  Rifles  now  ran  forward  as  skirmishers,  to  cover  the  advance 
of  the  assaulting  columns  ;  and  the  men,  who  had  been  lying  on 
the  ground  to  save  their  lives  till  they  should  be  called  for,  sprang 
to  their  feet,  and,  with  '  a  cry  of  exultation,'  began  to  move  on 
rapidly  for  the  walls.  Beneath  a  storm  of  bullets  from  the  be- 
sieged, who  knew  well  that  their  hour  had  come,  each  of  the  first 
three  columns  did  its  work  manfully  and  with  success.  They 
crossed  the  glacis  with  all  speed  and  left  it  behind  them  dotted 
with  writhing  men.     They  leaped  down  into  the  ditch,  and  in  it 


186  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

dead  and  dying  soon  lay  thickly  piled  together.  But  the  ladders 
were  planted  against  the  scarp,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  difficulties 
and  dangers  of  the  escalade  were  over.  Nicholson,  resolved  to  be 
.  the  first  in  danger  as  in  dignity,  was  amongst  the  foremost  of  his 
column  to  mount  the  breach.  The  second  column,  at  the  Water 
Bastion,  forced  its  way  in  about  the  same  time  ;  and  the  third 
marched,  almost  unopposed,  through  the  Kashmere  gateway,  which 
had  been  blown  down  by  the  small  exploding  party,  but  at  the 
cost  of  the  lives  of  almost  all  concerned.  Soon  the  whole  line  of 
the  ramparts  which  faced  the  Ridge  and  had  defied  us  for  three 
weary  months,  was  in  our  hands.  The  British  flag  was  once  more 
run  up  upon  the  Cabul  Gate ;  and  the  bugle-call  of  the  various 
regiments  gave  a  breathing  space,  in  which  men  might  congratulate 
each  other  on  the  victory,  might  count  up  the  survivors,  and  might 
calculate  and  grieve  over  the  number  of  the  dead.  A  ghastly 
tribute  had,  of  course,  been  paid  to  the  formidable  nature  of  the 
defences  and  the  unquestioned  gallantry  of  the  defenders. 

The  fourth  column,  under  Major  Reid,  supported  by  the  newly 
arrived  Kashmere  Contingent  under  Richard  Lawrence,  had  been 
less  successful.  With  his  faithful  Goorkhas,  Reid  had  held  Hindu 
Rao's  house — the  post  of  honour  and  of  danger  and  the  key  to  our 
whole  position — throughout  the  siege,  and  had  withstood  some 
twenty-six  attacks.  But  a  too  difficult — I  would  rather  say  an 
impossible — task  had  now  been  assigned  to  him.  He  was  w^ounded 
early  in  the  day,  and  his  column  was  unable  to  dislodge  the  enemy, 
and  so  to  approach  the  Lahore  Gate.  That  important  point  was 
still  held  in  force  by  the  foe  ;  and  the  fire  of  their  Artillery,  di- 
rected at  the  Cabul  Gate,  threatened  to  make  our  hard-won  position 
there  untenable.  Nicholson  and  Jones  had  just  met  each  other 
flushed  with  success,  at  the  heads  of  their  respective  columns  ;  and 
Nicholson,  seeing  that  there  was  still  good  work  to  be  done,  deter- 
mined to  be  the  doer  of  it.  He  called  for  volunteers,  and  they 
appeared.  But  the  one  street  by  which  they  could  approach  the 
Lahore  Gate  was,  like  many  streets  in  Eastern  towns,  so  narrow 
that  six  men  could  hardly  walk  abreast  along  it.  It  had  been  bar- 
ricaded by  the  watchful  enemy.  It  was  swept,  from  the  other  end, 
by  a  gun  loaded  with  grape,  and  the  windows  and  flat  roofs  of  the 
houses  on  either  side  of  it  bristled  with  riflemen.  What  wonder  if, 
from  death  in  such  manifold  and  such  insidious  forms,  even  the 
stoutest  hearts  shrunk  ?  Nicholson  saw  how  things  stood,  and, 
knowing  that  if  his  force  hesitated  they  were  lost,  sprang  to  the 
front,  and,  waving  his  sword  over  his  head,  as  if  he  were  a  simple 


l857  SIEGE  AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  187 

captain,  called  aloud  upon  his  men  to  follow  him.  Had  he  been 
serving  in  the  ranks  in  the  open  field,  his  noble  stature  would  have 
marked  him  out  as  a  target  for  the  enemy's  sharpshooters,  and  now 
his  commanding  presence  and  gestures,  as  he  strode  forward  alone 
between  the  muzzles  of  an  unseen  foe,  made  escape  impossible. 
There  was  death  in  every  window  and  on  every  house-top  ;  and 
the  '  brute  bullet '  which  did  the  deed  was  but  one  of  many  which 
must  have  found  its  way  to  that  noble  heart  before  he  could  have 
crossed  swords  with  the  foe.  He  fell  mortally  wounded,  and  with 
him,  young  as  he  was,  and  little  known  to  fame  as  he  had  been,  till 
the  extremity  of  the  peril  brought  him  to  the  front  and  revealed 
him  in  his  Titanic  mould  of  heart  and  limb,  there  fell  the  man 
who,  perhaps,  of  all  the  heroes  of  the  mutiny — the  Lawrence 
brothers  alone  excepted — India  could,  at  that  juncture,  least  afford 
to  lose.  He  begged  that  he  might  be  left  lying  on  the  ground  till 
Delhi  was  ours.  But  this  could  not  be,  and  he  was  borne  off  by 
his  followers  to  his  old  quarters  on  the  Ridge. 

The  long  autumn  day  was  over,  and  we  were  in  Delhi.  But 
Delhi  was,  by  no  means,  ours.  Sixty-six  officers  and  eleven  hun- 
dred men — nearly  a  third,  that  is,  of  the  whole  attacking  force — • 
had  fallen  ;  while,  as  yet,  not  a  sixth  part  of  the  town  was  in  our 
power.  How  many  men,  it  might  well  be  asked,  would  be  left  to 
us  by  the  time  that  we  had  conquered  the  remainder  ?  We  held 
the  line  of  ramparts  which  we  had  attacked  and  the  portions  of  the 
city  immediately  adjoining,  but  nothing  more.  The  Lahore  Gate 
and  the  Magazine,  the  Jumma  Musjid  and  the  Palace,  were  still 
untouched,  and  were  keeping  up  a  heavy  fire  on  our  position. 
Worse  than  this,  a  large  number  of  our  troops  had  fallen  victims 
to  the  temptation  which,  more  formidable  than  themselves,  our 
foes  had  left  behind  them,  and  were  wallowing  in  a  state  of  bestial 
intoxication.  The  enemy,  meanwhile,  had  been  able  to  maintain 
their  position  outside  the  town  ;  and  if  only,  at  this  supreme  hour, 
a  heaven-sent  General  had  appeared  amongst  them,  they  might 
have  attacked  our  camp,  defended  as  it  was  mainly  by  the  sick,  and 
the  maimed,  and  the  halt,  and,  giving  the  coiip-dc-grcice  to  such 
bulwarks  of  our  strength  as  Daly  and  Coke,  Reid  and  Chamber- 
lain, Showers  and  Seaton,  who  had  been  condemned  to  w^atch  from 
the  distance  the  terrible  conflict,  they  might,  once  more,  have  been 
able  to  call  the  Ridge  their  own. 

Never,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of  the  Mutiny  were  we  in  quite  so 
perilous  a  position  as  on  the  night  which  followed  our  greatest  mili- 
tary success.     General  Wilson,  indeed,  proposed,  as  might  have 


l88  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

been  expected  from  a  man  in  his  enfeebled  condition  of  mind  and 
body,  to  witPidraw  the  guns,  to  fall  back  on  the  camp  and  wait  for 
reinforcements  there  ;  a  step  which,  it  is  needless  to  point  out, 
would  have  given  us  all  the  deadly  work  to  do  over  again,  even  if 
our  force  should  prove  able  to  maintain  itself  on  the  Ridge  till 
reinforcements  came.  But  the  urgent  remonstrances  of  Baird 
Smith  and  others,  byword  of  mouth;  of  Chamberlain,  by  letter; 
and,  perhaps,  also,  the  echoes  which  may  have  reached  him  from 
the  tempest-tossed  hero  who  lay  chafing  against  his  cruel  destiny 
on  his  death-bed,  and  exclaimed  in  a  wild  paroxysm  of  passion, 
when  he  heard  of  the  move  which  was  in  contemplation,  '  Thank 
God,  I  have  strength  enough  left  to  shoot  that  man,'  turned  the 
General  once  more  from  his  purpose. 

On  the  following  day,  the  15th,  vast  quantities  of  the  intoxicating 
drinks,  which  had  wrought  such  havoc  among  our  men,  were  de- 
stroyed by  General  Wilson's  order,  and  the  streets  literally  ran  with 
rivers  of  beer,  and  wine,  and  brandy.  Meanwhile,  the  troops  were 
sleeping  off  their  drunken  debauch  ;  and  on  the  i6th  active  opera- 
tions were  resumed.  On  that  day  the  Magazine  was  taken,  and  its 
vast  stores  of  shot  and  shell,  and  of  all  the  materiel  of  war,  fell  once 
more  into  the  hands  of  their  proper  owners.  By  sapping  gradually 
from  house  to  house,  we  managed,  for  three  days  more,  to  avoid  the 
street-fighting  which,  once  and  again,  has  proved  so  demoralising  to 
Englishmen  ;  and,  slowly  but  surely,  we  pressed  back  the  defenders 
into  that  ever-narrowing  part  of  the  city  of  which,  fortunately  for 
themselves,  they  still  held  the  bolt-holes.  Many  of  them  had 
already  begun,  like  rats,  to  quit  the  sinking  vessel.  And  now  the 
unarmed  population  of  the  city  flocked  in  one  continuous  stream 
out  of  the  open  gates,  hoping  to  save  their  lives,  if  nothing  else, 
from  our  avenging  swords.  On  the  19th,  the  palace  of  the  Moguls, 
which  had  witnessed  the  last  expiring  flicker  of  life  in  an  effete 
dynasty,  and  the  cruel  murder  of  English  men,  and  women,  and  chil- 
dren, fell  into  our  hands  ;  and  by  Sunday,  the  20th,  the  whole  of  the 
city — in  large  part  already  a  city  of  the  dead — was  at  our  mercy. 

But  what  of  the  King  himself  and  the  Princes  of  the  royal 
house  ?  They  had  slunk  off  to  the  tomb  of  Humayoun,  a  huge 
building,  almost  a  city  in  itself,  some  miles  from  the  modern  Delhi, 
and  there,  swayed  this  way  and  that,  now  by  the  bolder  spirits  of 
his  army  who  pressed  him  to  put  himself  at  their  head  and  fight  it 
out  to  the  death,  as  became  the  descendant  of  Tamerlane  and 
Baber,  now  by  the  entreaties  of  his  young  wife,  who  was  anxious 
chiefly  for  her  own  safety  and  that  of  her  son,  the  heir  of  the  Mo- 


i8s7  SIEGE  AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  189 

guls  ;  and  now,  again,  by  the  plausible  suggestions  of  a  double-dyed 
traitor  of  his  own  house  who  was  in  Hodson's  pay,  and  who,  ap- 
proaching the  head  of  his  family  with  a  kiss  of  peace,  was  endeav- 
ouring to  detain  him  where  he  was  till  he  could  hand  him  over  to 
his  employer  and  receive  the  price  of  blood,  the  poor  old  monarch 
dozed  or  fooled  away  the  few  hours  of  his  sovereignty  which  re- 
mained, the  hours  which  might  still  make  or  mar  him,  in  paroxysms 
of  imbecile  vacillation  and  despair. 

The  traitor  gained  the  day,  and  Hodson,  who  could  play  the 
game  of  force  as  well  as  of  fraud,  and  was  an  equal  adept  at  either, 
learning  from  his  craven-hearted  tool  that  the  King  was  prepared 
to  surrender  on  the  promise  of  his  life,  went  to  Wilson  and  obtained 
leave,  on  that  condition,  to  bring  him  into  Delhi.  The  errand, 
with  such  a  promise  tacked  on  to  it,  was  only  half  to  Hodson's  taste. 
'  If  I  get  into  the  Palace,'  he  had  written  in  cool  blood  some  days 
before,  '  the  house  of  Timour  will  not  be  worth  five  minutes'  pur- 
chase, I  ween.'  And  it  was  owing  to  no  feeling  of  compunction  or 
compassion — for  to  such  Hodson  was  a  stranger — that  he  did  not, 
like  Pyrrhus,  bury  the  sword  which  had  hung  by  the  side  of  Jehangir 
or  Nadir  Shah  and  had  now  dropped  from  the  old  man's  hand,  hilt- 
deep  into  the  old  man's  heart,  the  moment  he  had  him  in  his  power. 
After  two  hours  of  bargaining  for  his  own  life  and  that  of  his  queen 
and  favourite  son,  the  poor  old  Priam  tottered  forth  and  was  taken 
back,  in  a  bullock-cart,  a  prisoner,  to  his  own  city  and  Palace,  and 
was  there  handed  over  to  the  civil  authorities. 

But  there  were  other  members  of  the  royal  family,  as  Hodson 
knew  well  from  his  informants,  also  lurking  in  Humayoun's  tomb. 
To  have  captured  the  King  and  lodged  him  as  a  prisoner  in  his  own 
Palace  was  much.  But  to  take  his  relations,  and,  when  they  were 
helpless  in  his  power,  to  slay  them  with  his  own  hand,  would  be 
better  still.  The  success  of  his  first  enterprise  made  General  Wilson 
more  ready  to  trust  him  in  this,  and  whether  from  inadvertence  or 
because  he  did  not  wish  to  be  '  burdened  with  prisoners,'  he  omitted 
to  stipulate  that  the  lives  of  the  Shahzadas  should  be  spared,  and 
that  they  too  should  be  brought,  free  from  injury  and  insult,  into 
the  city.  With  a  hundred  of  his  famous  horse  Hodson  started  for 
Humayoun's  tomb,  and  after  three  hours  of  negotiation,  the  three 
princes,  two  of  them  the  sons,  the  other  the  grandson  of  the  King^ 
surrendered  unconditionally  into  his  hands.  And  if  a  tiger  ever 
felt  a  pang  of  pity  for  the  helpless  prey  beneath  its  talons,  then, 
perhaps,  Hodson  would  have  been  willing  to  restrain  his  impatience 
for  the  blood  of  his  victims,  fallen   from  so  high  an  estate,  till  at 


190  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

least  they  had  gone  through  the  formalities  of  a  drumhead  courts 
martial.  Then,  but  only  then.  Their  arms  were  taken  from  them,- 
and,  escorted  by  some  of  his  horsemen,  they  too  were  despatched 
in  bullock-carts  towards  Delhi.  With  the  rest  of  his  horse,  Hodson 
stayed  behind  to  disarm  the  large  and  nerveless  crowd,  who,  as 
sheep  having  no  shepherd,  and  unable,  in  their  paralysed  condition, 
to  see  what  the  brute  weight  even  of  a  flock  of  sheep  might  do  by  a 
sudden  rush,  were  overawed  by  his  resolute  bearing. 

This  done,  he  galloped  after  his  prey  and  caught  them  up  just 
before  the  cavalcade  reached  the  walls  of  Delhi.  He  ordered  the 
princes  roughly  to  get  out  of  the  cart  and  strip, — for,  even  in  his 
thirst  for  their  blood,  he  had,  as  it  would  seem,  an  eye  to  the  value 
of  their  outer  clothes — he  ordered  them  into  the  cart  again,  he  seized 
a  carbine  from  one  of  his  troopers,  and  then  and  there,  with  his  own 
hand,  shot  them  down  deliberately  one  after  the  other.  It  was  a 
stupid,  cold-blooded,  three-fold  murder.'  The  princes  were  unresist- 
ing prisoners  in  his  hands.  No  evidence  worthy  of  the  name  had 
been  or  could  have  been  given  as  to  their  participation  in  the 
slaughter  of  our  countrymen.  Their  very  identity  depended  solely 
on  the  unsupported  testimony  of  the  traitorous  villain,  the  Mirza 
Elahee  Buksh,  who  would  have  sworn  away  the  life  of  his  dearest 
friend  if  he  had  had  aught  to  gain  thereby.  Had  they  been  put  upon 
their  trial,  disclosures  of  great  importance  as  to  the  origin  of  the 
Mutiny  could  hardly  fail  to  have  been  elicited.  Their  punishment 
would  have  been  proportioned  to  their  offence,  and  would  have 
been  meted  out  to  them  with  all  the  patient  majesty  of  offended 
law. 

And  who  was  the  man  who  assumed  the  right,  the  ghastly  right, 
to  play  the  part  of  policeman  and  magistrate,  judge,  jury,  and  exe- 
cutioner all  in  one  ?  Who  but  the  man  who,  I  do  not  shrink  from 
saying,  upon  the  evidence  before  me,  was,  in  proportion  to  his 
lights,    at  least    as   guilty  as   the   guiltiest  of  the   royal  family  of 

'  When  Hodson  found  that  his  deed  was  condemned,  as  it  soon  was,  by  all 
humane  and  thoughtful  persons,  he  attempted  to  justify  it  on  the  plea  that  he 
feared  an  attempt  at  a  rescue  would  be  made  by  the  crowd  behind.  It  is  there- 
fore pertinent  to  remark  that,  on  his  own  showing,  and  that  of  his  companion 
Macdowell,  the  captive  Princes  had  already  reached  the  walls  of  Delhi,  and 
therefore  the  British  line  ;  that  five  of  his  troopers  drawn  across  the  road  were 
sufficient  to  keep  back  '  the  crowd,'  while  he  was  ordering  the  Princes  to  strip, 
while  they  were  obeying  his  command  and  getting  out  of  and  into  the  bullock- 
cart  again,  while  he  was  making  a  speech  to  his  men,  and  while  he  was  per- 
petrating the  tlireefold  murder.  They  would,  ti  fortiori,  therefore,  have  sufficed 
to  keep  the  crowd  back  while  the  Princes  were  conveyed  within  the  walls. 


l8S7  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  I9I 

Delhi,     The  deed,  in  fact,  was  worthy  of  the  man,  and  the  man  of 
the  deed. 

During  his  visit,  in  early  times,  with  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  to 
Kashmere  his  management  of  the  public  purse,  which  had  been  en- 
trusted to  him,  and  his  private  money  dealings  with  the  native  mer- 
chants, had  been  of  such  a  character  that  Sir  Henry  Lawrence — 
one  of  whose  characteristics  it  was  always  to  stick  chivalrously  to 
anyone  who  had  been  his  friend  so  long  as  it  was  possible  to  do  so 
— lost  all  faith  in  his  personal  integrity,  and  told  his  most  intimate 
friends,  who  have  handed  it  on  to  me,  that  he  had  done  so.  In 
later  years,  his  management  of  the  accounts  of  his  regiment  had 
given  rise,  as  I  have  already  shown,  to  grave  suspicions  of  a  similar 
kind,  to  which  a  colour  is  given  by  many  letters  which  lie  before 
me  and  by  dozens  of  anecdotes  told  me  by  those  whose  word  is 
above  suspicion  and  who  had  the  best  means  of  knowing  the  truth. 
In  his  treatment  of  the  natives  he  was  unscrupulous  and  overbear- 
ing. On  one  occasion  a  native  of  the  Rawul  Pindi  Division  offended 
him  in  some  trifling  matter.  He  straightway,  in  sight  of  the  Com- 
missioner of  the  Division,  tied  him  to  his  horse's  stirrup  and  gal- 
loped away  with  him,  dangling  or  dragging  at  his  horse's  heels  ! 
The  Commissioner  protested  strongly  against  his  conduct.  *  You  are 
not  a  judge  of  first  instance,'  replied  Hodson,  *  and  have  no  right 
to  interfere.'  On  another  occasion  he  was  seen  by  the  same  high 
official,  and  a  man,  I  would  add,  remarkable  for  his  judicial  tem- 
perament and  his  scrupulous  accuracy,  lashing,  like  a  Degree,  the 
back  of"  an  ayah  with  his  whip.  In  the  year  1855,  he  was  deliber- 
ately deprived  by  Lord  Dalhousie  of  all  his  appointments  in  the  Pun- 
jab for  his  outrageous  treatment  of  a  native  chief.'  In  his  brilliant 
raids  after  Delhi  had  fallen  he  harried  the  cattle  of  the  neighbour- 
ing tribes  with  perfect  impartiality,  sold  many  of  them  for  his  own 
benefit,  and  with  the  proceeds,  in  the  November  following,  bought 
a  house  at  Umballa  which  became  known  as  '  the  cowhouse  ; '  a 
sufficient  indication  of  the  belief  which  people  who  knew  him  well 
had  formed  of  his  integrity.  What  wonder  that  John  Lawrence, 
who  had  also  known  him  well  in  earlier  times  and  had  long  borne 
with  him  for  his  brother  Henry's  sake,  steadily  refused,  though  he 
recognised  his  unique  value  as  a  partisan  leader  and  was  pressed  by 
Nihal  Sing  to  utilise  his  services,  to  give  him  any  appointment  in 
the  Punjab  even  in  the  crisis  of  the  Mutiny  ;  and  what  wonder  also 
that  when   Hodson  was,  from  sheer  necessity,  named  by  General 

'  See  above,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  386-390. 


192  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

Barnard  to  the  temporary  command  of  the  Guides  in  place  of  Henry 
Daly,  who  had  been  wounded,  the  first  to  protest,  and  that  too  in 
the  strongest  terms,  against  the  nomination  was  Henry  Daly  himself  ? 
He  was  soon  transferred  from  the  Guides  to  the  command  of  the 
Irregular  Horse,  who  afterwards  became  so  famous.  It  was  an 
arduous  post,  in  which  he  managed  to  do  us  the  very  best  and,  as  I 
think,  the  worst  also  of  services. 

It  only  remains  to  be  added  that  early  in  the  following  year  he 
was  killed  in  the  act  of  looting  in  a  house  at  Lucknow,  and  that  a 
life  of  him  has  been  written  by  his  brother,  no  doubt  in  entire  igno- 
rance of  the  real  facts  of  the  case,  extolling  him  as  a  model  of  Chris- 
tian chivalry  and  honour,  and  representing  the  highest  authorities  in 
India  and  the  Punjab  as  having  conspired  to  ruin  him.  It  is  high 
time  that  the  truth  about  him  should  be  told.  The  deeds  of 
prowess,  dash,  and  endurance  performed  by  Hodson  as  a  partisan 
leader,  and  as  the  head  of  tlie  Intelligence  Department  during  the 
siege  of  Delhi  and  after  it  was  over,  were  remarkable  enough,  and 
have  received,  both  at  the  timj  and  since,  their  full  meed  of  praise. 
But  are  they  not  outweighed  a  hundred  times  over  by  such  deeds  as 
the  murder  of  the  princes  ? 

While  the  last  scenes  of  the  great  drama  at  Delhi  were  being 
played  out  and  our  troops  were  slowly  pushing  their  way  towards 
the  Palace,  the  young  hero  whose  indomitable  will  and  stalwart  arm 
had  done  more  than  that  of  anyone  else  upon  the  Ridge  to  prepare 
the  way  for  our  success,  who  had  been  among  the  first  to  stand 
upon  the  breach  and  had  thence  been  able  to  take  somewhat  more 
than  a  Pisgah  view  of  the  place  towards  which  we  had  so  long  been 
toiling,  lay  slowly  dying  in  an  empty  house  within  the  camp.  There 
was  no  solid  ground  for  hope  even  from  the  first.  The  ball  had 
entered  his  right  side,  had  penetrated  the  lungs  and  passed  out 
beneath  the  left  arm.  But  men  found  it  impossible  not  to  cherish 
hope,  while  there  was  a  spark  of  life — of  so  rare  a  life — remaining  ; 
and  the  electric  wire  which  carried  each  day  or  twice  each  day  to 
the  remotest  corners  of  the  Punjab  news  of  the  progress  of  the  be- 
siegers, chronicled  also  the  fancied  alternations  and  the  all  too  cer- 
tain progress  of  the  '  slow  and  silent  and  resistless  sap  '  which  was 
going  on  in  Nicholson's  sick-room.  It  is  difficult  to  say  which 
item  of  the  message  was  scanned  with  the  most  heart-sickening 
anxiety  at  Lahore  and  at  Peshawur. 

*  He  lay,'  says  Hope  Grant,  who  visited  his  dying  bed,  '  like  a 
noble  oak  riven  asunder  by  a  thunderbolt.  He  suffered  terribly, 
but  between  the  paroxysms  of  his  pain  he  gasped  out  eager  in- 


i857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE    OF    DELHI.  193 

quiries  as  to  the  progress  of  the  siege,  and  even  sent  off  a  message 
to  Sir  John  Lawrence,  begging  him,  by  his  own  authority,  to  super- 
sede Wilson  and  appoint  Chamberlain  in  his  place  !  All  that  lov- 
ing care  could  do  to  soothe  so  troubled  and  tempestuous  a  death- 
bed was  done  by  Chamberlain  and  by  Daly,  and  Nicholson  lived 
on  to  hear  that  Delhi  was  completely  in  our  power,  and  the  King  a 
prisoner.  **  My  desire,"  he  said  to  the  native  who  brought  him  the 
news,  "was  that  Delhi  should  be  taken  before  I  die,  and  it  has 
been  granted."  He  lingered  on  till  the  23rd,  and  then  died  a 
death  which  was,  perhaps,  more  to  be  envied  even  than  that  of  his 
friend  and  master.  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  ;  for  he  died  in  the  mo- 
ment, not  of  extreme  peril  but  of  assured  victory,  a  victory  won  in 
so  large  a  measure  by  himself.  He  was  buried,  on  the  following 
day,  in  front  of  the  Kashmere  Gate,  and  not  far  from  the  spot 
which  had  witnessed  his  last  achievement.' 

'  If  there  is  ever  a  desperate  deed  to  be  done  in  India,'  Herbert 
Edwardes  had  said  to  Lord  Canning  shortly  before  the  Mutiny 
broke  out,  '  Nicholson  is  the  man  to  do  it ; '  and  within  six  months 
Hot!  Murdan  and  Trimmu  Ghaut,  Nujuffghur  and  Delhi,  the 
narrow  lane  swept  by  grape  and  lined  by  a  skulking  foe,  no  less 
than  '  the  imminent  deadly  breach,'  had  proved  that  Herbert 
Edwardes  was  no  false  prophet.  In  vain  did  Nicholson,  as  he 
tossed  feverishly  on  his  death-bed,  express  a  wish  to  press  once 
more  the  hand  of  his  friend.  That  could  not  be  ;  for  Edwardes 
had  sterner  duties  on  the  Peshawur  frontier.  But  his  heart  was  in 
the  sick  chamber  on  the  Ridge,  and,  with  the  aid  of  the  telegraph, 
he  might  almost  be  said  to  be  listening  at  its  door  and  watching 
the  life  that  was  slowly  ebbing  away.  When  at  length  the  message 
came,  so  long  feared  and  so  long  expected,  that  all  was  over,  he 
paid  his  last  tribute  to  his  friend  in  a  striking  epitaph,  which, 
though  it  may  seem  to  those  who  read  it  coolly  at  this  distance  of 
time  and  place,  and  who  have  no  personal  knowledge  either  of 
the  man  or  of  his  deeds,  to  be  too  highly  coloured,  and  though 
some  of  its  statements  are  certainly  open  to  question,  does  not,  in 
the  opinion  of  many  who  knew  the  man,  do  its  subject  more  than 
justice.  'The  feelings,' says  Colonel  Randall,  'with  which  I  re- 
gard John  Nicholson  may  have  been,  at  first,  engendered  by  the 
almost  superhuman  majesty  of  the  man,  acting  on  impressionable, 
youth.  But  the  impression  was  indelible,  and  neither  the  separa- 
tion caused  by  his  death  nor  by  time  has  or  can  remove  it.  To 
me  John  Nicholson  was  and  is  the  ideal  of  all  that  is  noble,  great, 
and  true — a  hero.'  The  epitaph,  I  would  add,  was  intended  not 
VOL.  II. — 13 


194  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  185? 

for  the  simple  tomb  before  the  Kashmere  Gate — for  no  elaborate 
record  of  his  achievements  coukl  be  needed  on  the  spot  which  had 
witnessed  the  last  and  most  brilliant  of  them  all — but  for  the  far- 
off  church  at  Lisburn  in  Ireland,  where  still  lived  the  aged  mother 
of  the  Nicholson  brothers,  one  of  whose  sons  had  given  a  limb,  and 
the  other  his  life,  in  the  final  assault  on  Delhi. 

How  great  had  been  the  friction  between  two  men  endowed  with 
such  commanding  powers  and  such  strength  of  will  as  John  Law- 
rence and  John  Nicholson,  the  one  of  them  armed  with  superior 
authority,  the  other  often  swayed  by  quite  ungovernable  restive- 
ness,  no  reader  of  this  biography  will  need  to  be  reminded.  It  is 
more  to  my  purpose  to  remark  here  that  on  no  one — not  even  on 
the  Fakirs  who  worshipped  him  as  their  Guru,  and  who,  when  they 
heard  that  he  was  dead,  determined,  two  of  them  to  live  no  longer 
in  the  world  which  he  had  left,  and  a  third,  with  truer  instinct,  to 
worship  henceforward  nothing  but  the  God  whom  '  Nikkul  Seyn  ' 
had  worshipped — did  the  death  of  Nicholson  produce  so  profound 
an  impression  as  on  his  much-enduring  chief,  who,  knowing  the 
innate  nobleness  of  the  man,  had  determined,  cost  him  what  it 
might,  to  retain  him  in  the  Punjab  so  long  as  the  Punjab  seemed 
to  give  him  the  work  for  which  he  was  best  fitted,  and  had  then, 
with  equal  self-abnegation,  determined,  cost  him  what  it  might,  to 
send  him  away  from  the  Punjab,  when  still  nobler  work  seemed  to 
open  out  before  him  at  Delhi. 

When  the  news  reached  Lahore  that  Nicholson  was  dead — news 
which  followed  so  fast  on  that  of  the  fall  of  Delhi,  the  crowning 
achievement  of  John  Lawrence's  Hfe — John  Lawrence  burst  into 
tears,  and,  though  it  was  never  his  way  to  wear  his  heart  upon  his 
sleeve  or  to  use  many  words  while  the  time  still  called  for  deeds, 
his  grief  for  the  dead  and  his  warm  appreciation  of  him  found  vent, 
alike  in  his  private  letters  and  his  public  utterances.  '  We  have  lost,' 
he  says  to  Neville  Chamberlain,  '  many  good  and  noble  soldiers, 
but  none  of  them  to  compare  to  John  Nicholson.  He  was  a  glorious 
soldier  ;  it  is  long  before  we  shall  look  upon  his  like  again.'  '  Gen- 
eral Nicholson's  loss,'  he  says  in  his  general  order,  '  is  greatly  to  be 
deplored.  .  .  .  He  possessed  some  of  the  highest  qualities  of  a 
soldier.  Brave,  sagacious,  and  devoted  to  his  profession,  the  Bengal 
Army  contains  no  nobler  and  no  abler  soldier.'  And  in  the  Mutiny 
Report,  written,  not  when  his  grief  was  fresh  upon  him,  but  after 
the  crisis  was  over,  when  he  was  able  to  look  back  with  the  calm- 
ness of  a  spectator  or  a  judge  on  all  that  had  happened,  he  said 
deliberately,  'Brigadier-General    John    Nicholson   is   now  beyond 


l8S7  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  195 

human  praise  and  human  reward.  But  so  long  as  British  rule  shall 
endure  in  India,  his  fame  can  never  perish.  He  seems  especially 
to  have  been  raised  for  this  juncture.  He  crowned  a  bright,  though 
brief,  career  by  dying  of  the  wound  he  received  in  the  moment  of 
victory  at  Delhi.  The  Chief  Commissioner  does  not  hesitate  to 
affirm  that  without  John  Nicholson  Delhi  could  not  have  fallen.' 
And,  perhaps,  I  may  add  here  what  has  a  special  interest  to  myself, 
that  throughout  his  subsequent  life,  as  I  hear  from  his  friends,  and 
not  least  during  the  last  years  of  it,  as  I  can  say  from  vivid  recol- 
lection, there  was  no  one  of  his  former  Staff  in  the  Punjab  to  whom 
Lord  Lawrence  was  so  fond  of  turning  the  conversation,  no  one 
whose  deeds — even  those  which  had  given  him  most  trouble  at  the 
time — he  recounted,  sometimes  with  so  much  amusement,  always 
with  such  sympathy  and  admiration,  as  those  of  John  Nicholson. 

With  the  fall  of  Delhi  fell  the  hopes  of  the  mutineers.  The  ex- 
tremity of  the  peril  was  over.  For  the  rebellion  was  crushed  at  its 
centre,  at  its  heart.  The  fortifications  which  we  had  ourselves 
erected  or  repaired,  the  arms  and  ammunition  which  we  had  our- 
selves collected,  the  troops  whom  we  had  ourselves  raised,  disci- 
plined, and  armed,  the  historic  prestige,  and  the  inherent  strength  of 
the  resuscitated  capital  of  the  Moguls  had  all  failed  to  withstand 
our  onslaught,  and  how  could  any  other  city  or  any  other  force 
hope  to  be  more  successful  ?  The  struggle,  indeed,  was  to  be  pro- 
tracted for  many  a  long  month  to  come  in  the  North-West  and  in 
the  Central  Provinces,  but,  on  the  part  of  the  mutineers,  it  was  no 
longer  a  struggle  for  empire  but  for  bare  life.  Instead  of  boldly 
taking  the  offensive — with  the  one  exception  of  the  force  at  Luck- 
now — they  appeared  before  us  only  to  vanish  away  ;  and  our  chief 
difficulty  henceforward  was  to  find  or  hunt  them  down,  not  to  beat 
them  when  we  had  found  them. 

And  who  was  the  man  who,  above  all  others,  had  done  most 
towards  this  result  ?  To  whom  did  all  England  and  all  India, 
while  the  memory  of  his  deeds  was  too  fresh  and  the  personal  sense 
of  deliverance  was  too  vivid  to  allow  of  aught  but  the  simple  truth 
being  told,  agree  that  our  success  was  chiefly  owing  ?  To  whom 
but  to  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Punjab,  who  had  fixed  those 
keen,  deep-set  grey  eyes  of  his  on  that  one  spot  from  the  very  mo- 
ment of  the  revolt  and  had  refused  to  look  elsewhere  till  he  had 
secured  and  had  witnessed  its  fall.  He  it  was,  who,  ruling  the 
most  warlike,  and,  potentially,  the  most  turbulent  of  Indian  prov- 
inces, had  made  it  to  be  the  arsenal,  the  anchor,  the  recruiting- 
ground  of  the  whole  of  India,  and  holding  it  in  his  iron,  or  rather, 


196  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857 

I  would  say,  in  his  easy  grasp,  had  crushed  mutiny  and  disorder 
wherever  it  had  shown  its  head,  and  kept  thousands  of  armed  and 
disarmed  Sepoys  in  hand,  had  carried  on  the  civil  administration  of 
the  country  and  raised  its  revenue  as  though  in  a  time  of  profound 
peace,  and  yet  had  stripped  it  of  its  natural  guardians,  of  the  great 
army  which  successive  Governors-General  had  thought  essential  to 
its  security  and  that  of  India,  had  sent  regiment  after  regiment  in 
quick  succession  to  Delhi,  and  then,  to  take  their  places,  relying  on 
the  justice  of  his  rule,  had  with  prudent  audacity  enlisted  Sikhs  and 
Punjabis,  Afridis  and  Mohmunds,  and  representatives  of  a  dozen 
other  wild  tribes,  till  he  could  boast  and  truly  boast  that  he  had 
called  into  existence  an  army  of  over  30,000  men. 

The  natives  of  the  Punjab  generally  and  the  civil  and  military 
officers  trained  in  the  Lawrence  school  no  doubt  contributed,  in 
their  several  degrees,  nobly  towards  the  general  result.  But  in 
what  chief  ruler,  we  may  well  ask,  did  all  the  best  elements  of  a 
province  ever  find  so  stalwart  and  so  true  a  personification,  in 
whom  were  they  all  so  well  summed  up  as  was  the  Punjab  in  the 
person  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  ?  Alone  the  Punjab  had  done  the 
work.  Not  a  man  had  come  from  England  or  was  within  four 
hundred  miles  of  the  scene  of  action  when  Delhi  fell.  With  the 
exception  of  the  small  contingent  from  Meerut,  and  the  help  sent 
by  Frere  from  Scinde,  not  a  man,  not  a  rupee,  not  a  gun,  not  a 
beast  of  burden,  had  come  from  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  India  to 
the  support  of  the  Delhi  Field  Force.  W^hat  wonder,  then,  that 
the  leading  members  of  the  Government  of  India  and  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  England,  that  the  chief  officers  of  the  army  before 
Delhi,  who  knew  the  circumstances  best,  and  the  ablest  of  the  sub- 
ordinates who  served  under  him — in  spite  of  jealousies  and  heart- 
burnings, and  misconceptions,  such  as  must  arise  at  such  a  time 
•^all  greeted  Sir  John  Lawrence  by  acclamation  as  the  man  who  had 
done  more  than  any  other  single  man  to  save  the  Indian  Empire  ? 

It  has  indeed  been  hinted,  though  never  said  outright,  years 
afterwards,  by  some  few  military  men  who  have  perhaps  resented  a 
civilian  poaching  upon  what  they  regard  as  their  own  preserves, 
and  by  a  few  aggressive  politicians  who  have  chafed  at  his  deter- 
mination not  to  embark  on  the  quagmire  of  Central  Asian  politics 
and  wars,  that  it  was  not  Sir  John  Lawrence  who  saved  the  Punjab, 
but  his  subordinates  in  spite  of  him  !  The  charge  refutes  itself. 
That  it  is  not  only  not  true,  but  that  it  is  the  very  reverse  of  the 
truth,  few  readers  of  this  biography  will,  I  think,  question.  They 
will  be  able  to  judge  for  themselves,  even  from  such  a  selection  as 


i857  SIEGE   AND   CAPTURE   OF   DELHI.  I97 

I  have  been  able,  within  my  limits,  to  make  from  the  mass  of  papers 
before  me,  whether  John  Lawrence  was  or  was  not  the  ruHng  spirit 
in  the  Punjab  ;  whether  it  was  he  who  encouraged  the  faint-hearted, 
who  kept  back  the  rash,  who  got  rid  of  the  laggard  and  incompe- 
tent ;  whether  it  was  he  who  laid  down  the  main  lines  of  the  policy 
to  be  pursued,  and  in  spite  of  every  difficulty  and  every  discour- 
agement carried  it  out  to  the  end  ;  whether  it  was  he  who  held  all 
the  threads  of  each  movement  and  each  combination  in  his  hand  ; 
whether  it  was  to  him  that  his  subordinates,  even  the  ablest  of 
them,  looked  up  as  to  a  master  whom  they  were  proud  to  serve  ; 
whether  it  was  his  influence,  in  short,  which  pervaded  everything 
and  was  everything. 

Admirable  subordinates,  I  repeat  it.  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  ; 
and  it  is,  in  my  view,  one  of  the  very  greatest  of  his  merits  that 
with  his  strong  idiosyncrasies  and  with  theirs  he  managed  to  keep 
them  round  him,  to  put  each  into  his  right  place,  and  to  be  recog- 
nised by  each  and  all  of  them  as  king.  There  may  have  been 
amongst  them  individuals  who,  in  this  or  that  quality  which  go  to 
make  up  a  ruler  of  men,  equalled  or  even  surpassed  him.  Mont- 
gomery may  have  been  more  prompt  and  sanguine  ;  Nicholson 
more  impetuous  and  irresistible  ;  Edvvardes  more  versatile  and 
dashing  ;  Temple  may  have  had  a  readier  pen  and  been  more  fluent 
of  speech.  But  which  of  them,  excellent  as  they  all  were  in  their 
several  lines,  came  near  to  him  in  the  union  of  them  all  ?  Which 
of  them  had  so  firm  a  grasp,  which  took  so  wide  a  view  ?  Which 
of  them  struck  harder  while  it  was  necessary  to  strike,  or  was  more 
resolute  to  withhold  his  hand  the  moment  it  was  possible  to  do  so  ? 
Which  of  them  was  so  ready  to  draw  distinctions  of  guilt,  to  re- 
member that  while  we  condemned  the  mutineers,  we  ourselves  were 
not  free  from  blame  ?  Which  of  them,  when  he  had  proved  that 
he  had  the  strength  and  grip  of  a  giant,  was  so  ready  to  use  it  as  a 
little  child  ?  Which  of  them  so  managed  to  combine  prudence 
with  boldness,  simplicity  with  shrewdness,  insight  with  common 
sense  ?  Which  of  them  was  so  ready,  before  making  up  his  mind, 
to  gather  information  from  every  quarter,  and  to  hear  all  that  was 
to  be  said  on  both  sides  ?  Which  of  them,  with  the  firm  and  simple 
faith  which  was  characteristic  of  the  Lawrence  school,  was  so  free 
from  all  tinge  of  religious  narrowness  or  fanaticism,  and  was  so 
well  able  therefore  to  avoid  the  dangers  into  which  some  few  of 
them — notably  Edwardes — in  an  outburst  of  proselytising  zeal  after 
the  Mutiny  v/ould  infallibly  have  plunged  us  ?  Which  of  them, 
energetic  and  vigorous  as  they  all  were,  had  his  amazing  avidity 


198  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857 

for  work,  work  too  which  was  never  merely  to  be  '  got  through  ' 
somehow,  but  to  be  worked  through  in  the  best  possible  manner  ? 
Which  of  them  was  blest,  in  such  large  measure,  with  that  rich 
humour  which,  rightly  viewed,  is  in  truth  one  of  the  highest  gifts  of 
men  ?  Finally,  which  of  his  subordinates,  able,  and  energetic,  and 
public  spirited  as  they  all  were,  would  have  aspired  to  sit  upon  his 
throne  in  that  day  of  peril ;  or,  if  he  had  done  so,  would  have  been 
served  by  all  the  rest  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  served  by  them, 
patiently,  loyally,  enthusiastically  ?  Let  these  questions  be  first 
answered  by  any  one  who  knows  the  facts  and  who  knew  the  men, 
and  then  let  him  say  that  the  Punjab  was  saved  not  by  John  Law- 
rence, but  by  his  subordinates  in  spite  of  him. 

What  said — and  with  their  verdict  I  will  conclude  this  record  of 
the  crowning  achievement  of  John  Lawrence's  life — the  ablest  and 
most  energetic  of  those  subordinates  themselves  ?  Whg.t  said  the 
chief  authorities  in  the  army  before  Delhi  ?  What  the  highest  civil 
authorities  in  the  country  ?  I  will  take  Sir  Robert  Montgomery  and 
Sir  Herbert  Edwardes  as  fair  samples  of  the  first,  Sir  Henry  Nor- 
man and  Sir  Archdale  Wilson  as  fair  samples  of  the  second,  and 
Lord  Canning  as  the  most  sufficient,  most  impartial,  and  most  re- 
sponsible witness  on  the  part  of  the  third. 

Sir  Robert  Montgomery,  in  summing  up  his  Mutiny  Report — a 
report,  therefore,  of  doings  of  which  he  might  without  undue  self- 
assertion  say  *"  Quorum  pars  magna  fui' — thus  speaks  : 

Foremost,  stands  Sir  John  Lawrence,  G.C.B.,  Chief  Commissioner. 
I  desire  to  tender  him  my  grateful  thanks  for  the  hearty  support  he  has 
always  given  to  any  proposal  which  I  felt  called  upon  to  make,  and  to 
express  to  him  my  sincerest  admiration  of  the  inirepid  policy  which  he 
originated  and  so  nobly  carried  oul—even  to  complete  success.  I  only 
express  my  own  feeling  and  that  of  every  officer  in  the  province  in  saying 
that  we  have  all  felt  it  a  high  privilege  to  serve  our  country  under  him. 

Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  writing  to  his  Chief  himself  on  the  day 
on  which  the  news  of  the  successful  assault  on  Delhi  reached  him, 
poured  out  his  pent  up  feelings  thus  : — 

Sincerely  do  I  congratulate  you  on  this  great  success  which  has 
crownedyour  efforts  for  the  last  four  months.  Not  a  bayonet  or  a  rupee 
has  reached  Delhi  from  Calcutta  or  England.  It  has  been  recovered 
by  you  and  your  resources  with  God's  blessing,  so  that  it  may  be  truly 
told  in  history  that  the  revolt  of  the  Bengal  Army,  one  hundred  thousand 
strong,  has  been  encountered  successfully  by  the  English  in  Upper  India. 

And  some  years  afterwards,  adopting  one  of  his  Chief's  favourite 
metaphors,  he  gave  utterance  to  his  deliberate  opinion,  thus  : 


i857  SIEGE    AND    CAPTURE   OF    DELHI.  199 

Honour,  all  honour  to  Coachman  John,  and  honour  too  to  the  team 
who  pulled  tlie  coach.  He  alone  was  at  the  helm  and  bore  all  the 
responsibility  on  his  own  shoulders  ;  any  treatment  of  the  picture,  there- 
fore, which  would  put  John  in  other  than  the  first  place  would  be  thor- 
oughly untrue. 

What  said,  once  more,  the  chief  authorities  of  the  Delhi  Field 
Force — Captain  Norman,  Assistant  Adjutant-General  of  the  Bengal 
Army,  and  General  Archdale  Wilson,  the  Commander-in-Chief  ? 

At  the  end  of  his  narrative  of  the  campaign  of  the  Delhi  army — 
a  narrative  to  which  I  am  much  indebted — Sir  Henry  Norman 
says  : — 

How  Sir  John  Lawrence  supported  and  reinforced  the  army  at  the 
risk  of  denuding  the  country  under  his  government  of  the  troops  that  he 
most  urgently  required  ;  how  vigorously  he  aided  the  operations  in  every 
way  has  already  been  acknowledged  by  the  Government  of  India.  To 
him  the  army  of  Delhi,  as  well  as  the  British  nation,  owe  a  deep  debt  of 
gratitude,  which  by  the  former  certainly  will  not  be  forgotten. 

In  the  official  despatch  written  when  Delhi  was  at  last  in  his 
hands,  General  Wilson  expresses  himself  thus  ;  and  we  can  well 
believe  that  the  more  conscious  he  had  been  of  his  own  failing 
powers,  the  more  relieved  he  must  have  been  to  feel  that  the  strong 
arm,  the  clear  mind,  the  indomitable  will  of  John  Lawrence  were 
behind  him  : — 

I  trust  I  may  be  excused  if  I  thus  publicly  acknowledge  the  all- 
important  and  valuable  aid  for  which  I  am  indebted  to  the  Chief 
Commissioner  of  the  Punjab,  Sir  John  Lawrence,  K.C.B.,  to  whose  inde- 
fatigable exertions  in  reinforcing  me  with  every  available  soldier  in  the 
Punjab,  .the  successful  result  of  our  operations  is,  I  unhesitatingly  pro- 
nounce, attributable. 

From  Lord  Canning's  elaborate  Minute  on  the  services  of  Civil 
Officers  and  others  during  the  Mutiny  and  Rebellion  I  quote  one 
paragraph  only  : — 

There  remains  the  large  and  important  province  of  the  Punjab.  The 
merits  of  the  officers  to  whose  courage  and  ability  the  preservation  of 
that  country  is  due  have  been  set  forth  by  their  distinguished  chief,  Sir 
John  Lawrence,  with  a  fulness  which  leaves  little  to  be  added.  Of  what 
is  due  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  himself  no  man  is  ignorant.  Through  him 
Delhi  fell,  and  the  Punjab,  no  longer  a  weakness,  became  a  source  of 
strength.  But  for  him,  the  hold  of  England  over  Upper  India  would 
have  had  to  be  recovered  at  a  cost  of  English  blood  and  treasure  which 
defies  calculation.  It  is  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  value  of  such  ability, 
vigilance,  and  energy  at  such  a  time. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

JOHN   LAWRENCE   AS   A   CONQUEROR. 

SErxEMBER  1857— February  1859. 

Delhi  did  not  fall  a  day  too  soon.  For  early  in  September  risings 
took  place  in  two  very  different  parts  of  the  Punjab,  which  showed 
to  those  who  were  not  behind  the  scenes,  or  who  were  able  to  shut 
their  eyes  to  the  facts,  what  John  Lawrence  with  his  fuller  knowl- 
edge and  his  heavier  responsibility  had  never  disguised  from  him- 
self, that  the  chain  had  already  been  strained  almost  to  snapping, 
and  that  the  natives  of  the  Punjab  who  had  waited  to  give  us  time 
to  win,  fancying  at  length  that  we  were  about  to  lose,  were  prepared ' 
to  join  the  winning  side.  One  of  these  risings  took  place  at  Murri  ; 
the  other  and  more  formidable  one  in  the  wild  jungles  between 
Lahore  and  Mooltan.  The  first  was  comparatively  unimportant, 
but  it  has  a  special  interest  for  this  biography,  inasmuch  as  at 
Murri,  which  was  guarded  only  by  a  handful  of  police,  were  Sir 
John  Lawrence's  wife  and  children,  as  well  as  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  European  ladies. 

Early  in  September  Hakim  Khan,  one  of  Lady  Lawrence's  per- 
sonal attendants  and  a  man  of  much  influence  with  his  tribe, 
warned  her  that  unless  Delhi  fell  within  four  days  there  would  be 
a  general  rising  in  Huzara,  that  the  Khurrals  of  that  country  and 
the  Dhoonds  of  the  hills  near  Rawul  Pindi  were  already  in  league 
for  the  purpose,  and  that  Murri  with  its  almost  defenceless  inhab- 
itants would  be  the  first  object  of  their  attack.  The  warning  did  its 
work.  Such  precautions  as  were  possible  were  taken.  An  attack 
made  prematurely  by  night  by  a  portion  of  the  Khurrals,  three  hun- 
dred in  number,  men  who  were  eager  only  for  plunder  and  did  not 
anticipate  any  resistance,  was  easily  beaten  off.  The  Dhoonds,  when 
they  came  up  next  day,  finding  that  the  villages  of  their  confederates 
were  in  flames,  beat  a  hasty  retreat,  and  reinforcements  which  were 
hurried  up  soon  afterwards  by  Thornton  from  Rawul  Pindi,  and  by 
Becher  from  LIuzara,  secured  the  safety  of  Murri  and  its  inmates. 

200 


1857-59  JO^N    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONOUERER.  201 

The  Dhoonds  (writes  John  Lawrence)  have  been  collecting  about 
Murri,  and  have  attempted  to  plunder  it.  Luckily  my  wife  heard  of  it 
and  put  the  authorities  on  their  guard.  There  was  a  fight.  One  man 
was  killed,  and  two  boned  and  shot.  .  .  .  These  affairs  are  inconven- 
ient, and  show  that  the  people  consider  we  are  weak,  and  not  able  to 
hold  our  own.     Please  God  we  will  Undeceive  them. 

To  another  friend  he  admits  the  weakness  frankly  : 

We  are  very  weak  in  the  Punjab  ;  more  so  than  I  like.  But  I  cannot 
help  it.  It  was  clearly  our  duty  to  give  all  the  assistance  we  could  down 
below.  But  for  us  the  army  before  Delhi  must  have  been  destroyed.  I 
have  asked  General  Wilson  to  let  us  have  one  corps  of  Europeans  back 
after  Delhi  falls.  Edwardes  wants  me  to  recall  others,  but  this  is  clearly 
impossible. 

John  Lawrence  was  not  little  a  proud  of  his  wife's  part  in  this 
affair  : 

I  sincerely  trust  (he  says  to  Becher)  that  the  Khurrals  have  seceded 
from  the  Dhoond  league.  My  wife  however  seems  to  think  otherwise. 
You  will  laugh  at  the  idea  of  my  wife  turning  politician.  You  must 
know  that  it  was  she  who  got  the  first  information  of  the  intentions  of 
the  Dhoonds  to  break  out. 

He  sent  Lady  Lawrence's  account  of  the  affair  to  Edwardes,  whose 
reply  is  characteristic  : 

I  return  you  your  wife's  letter  ;  she  is  a  good,  sensible  creature,  and 
could  command  the  station,!  believe,  with  success  in  case  of  emergency. 
What  she  says  is  true.  We  are  not  liked  anywhere,  even  in  Huzara, 
much  less  in  Murri.  The  people  hailed  us  as  deliverers  from  Sikh  mal- 
administration, and  we  were  popular  so  long  as  we  were  plaistering 
wounds.  But  the  patient  is  well  now  and  he  finds  the  doctor  a  bore. 
There  is  no  getting  over  the  fact  that  we  are  not  Mohammedans,  that 
we  neither  eat,  drink,  nor  intermarry  with  them.  We  aim  at  being  just 
and  strong,  and  is  there  any  such  frightful  bore  in  the  world  as  your 
Aristides  ? 

While  this  danger  was  being  laid  at  Murri  a  second  and  greater 
one  was  hatching  in  the  jungles  of  Gogaira.  Let  us  recall  the  exact 
position  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  in  the  period  immediately  preceding 
the  fall  of  Delhi,  that  we  may  better  estimate  the  extent  of  the 
danger  and  the  measures  he  took  to  meet  it.  There  were  still 
19,000  Poorbeas  in  the  Punjab,  and  of  these  not  less  than  5,800  re- 
tained their  arms.  To  overawe  this  large  army  and  to  secure  the 
whole  country  there  were  exactly  3,620  Europeans  and  12,740  Pun- 


202  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

jabis,  2,000  of  these  last  being  of  Hindustani  origin,  and  therefore 
suspected.  Under  these  circumstances  Sir  John  Lawrence  thought 
it  his  bounden  duty  to  oppose  all  propositions  from  whomsoever 
they  came,  and  however  urgently  they  were  pressed  upon  him,  to 
raise  any  more  native  troops,  till  the  atmosphere  should  have  cleared. 

UiUil  (he  writes  to  Edwardes)  I  see  more  Europeans  in  the  country, 
it  is  sorely  against  my  will  that  I  add  another  regiment  of  cavalry  or  in- 
fantry to  my  troops.  Numbers  give  confidence,  and  inspire  feelings  of 
strength.  I  see  plainly  now  that  the  Punjabis  see  that  it  is  they  who  are 
fighting  our  battles.  It  is  a  relief  to  me,  as  a  corps  fills  up,  to  see  it 
move  downwards. 

Again,  on  September  16,  he  says  : — 

I  look  on  it  that  we  are  in  a  very  critical  position,  and  that  in  the  event 
of  any  check  we  might  even  have  the  Sikhs  against  us.  What  I  do  not 
wish  the  Punjabis  to  see  and  feel  is  their  strength.  We  did  everything 
we  could  to  get  the  Sikhs  in  Delhi  to  come  over.  Half  were  for  coming 
and  half  not.  They  ended  in  fighting  desperately  against  us.  ...  I 
consider  that  the  conduct  of  the  Home  Government  in  not  sending  out 
reinforcements  before  is  shameful.  It  is  God's  mercy,  and  this  alone, 
that  we  have  not  all  been  destroyed.  Even  now  it  almost  looks  like  a 
drawn  battle  inside  Delhi,  and  the  mutineers  will  not  retire.  We  are 
going  on  wisely  and  carefully,  but  any  misfortune  might  prove  fatal. 

To  Becher,  who  was  also  anxious  to  raise  more  men,  he  says  : — 

I  am  averse  to  raising  a  man  more  than  we  can  possibly  do  without. 
While  I  raise  Punjabi  regiments  because  we  cannot  do  without  them,  I 
limit  the  measure  to  the  lowest  possible  number.  Until  we  get  out  large 
bodies  of  Europeans  this  is,  I  am  convinced,  the  only  safe  policy.  We 
have  had  a  '  Poorbea-girdie'  (invasion),  don't  let  us  have  a  Punjabi  one. 
If  the  Punjabis  once  feel  that  they  are  stronger  than  we  are,  I  would  not 
give  much  for  their  fidelity. 

A  letter  to  Brigadier  Cotton  on  the  same  subject  is  interesting  as 
showing  how  everything  which  he  had  done  in  the  Punjab  throughout 
the  Mutiny  he  had  done  upon  his  own  responsibility.  Upon  him 
therefore  would  rest  alike  the  glory  of  success  or  the  reproach  of 
failure. 

I  am  averse  to  raising  one  corps  of  cavalry  or  infantry  more  than  the 
emergency  demands.  First  because  all  that  I  have  yet  done  has  been 
off  my  own  bat.  I  have  been  vested  with  no  special  powers  by  the 
supreme  Government.  It  seems  therefore  clearly  my  duty  not  to  do  too 
much  ;  not  to  complicate  matters  ;  not  to  commit  Governm.ent  to  any 
particular  course  of  policy  as  regards  the  Native  army. 


1857-59  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   A  CONQUEROR.  203 

My  second  reason  is  that  we  either  succeed  or  fail  at  Delhi  within  the 
next  few  days.  If  we  succeed  all  will  go  smoothly;  the  route  will  be 
open,  and  the  Government  and  the  Commander-in-Chief  will  be  able  to 
give  their  own  orders.  They  will  have  to  judge  and  decide  what  is 
necessary  for  the  whole  army.  I  believe  it  will  be  dangerous  to  go  on 
adding  to  the  Punjab  materiel.  ...  If,  on  the  other  hand,  Delhi  does 
not  fall,  I  shall  feel  very  uncomfortable  in  consequence  of  the  small 
number  of  Europeans  left  in  the  Punjab.  We  have  now  not  four  thou- 
sand men.  It  is  impossible  that  the  Punjabis  do  not  see  their  strength. 
I  know  they  do.  God  forbid  that  they  should  attempt  to  use  it.  Until 
fresh  regiments  arrive  from  England  we  are  sitting  upon  a  volcano 
which  any  accident  may  explode.   .  .   • 

Don't  suppose,  my  dear  General,  that  I  wish  to  dogmatise  on  military 
matters.  Such  is  not  the  case.  I  am  quite  willing  to  leave  such  matters 
to  those  to  whom  they  properly  belong.  But  no  man  can  have  served 
as  long  as  I  have  done,  and  had  the  advantages  which  I  have  possessed, 
without  being  able  to  learn  a  good  deal.  The  army  in  India  must 
always  be  largely  composed  of  natives.  It  should  not  be  our  object 
merely  to  make  it  a  powerful  machine  formidable  to  our  outside  ene- 
mies. We  should,  in  the  first  instance,  aim  at  making  it  a  thoroughly 
safe  one.  I  mention  all  these  things,  lest  you  may  think  that  I  do  not 
support  all  your  measures  from  mere  fancy  or  caprice.  Once  let  it  be 
decided  what  shall  be  the  character  and  composition  and  strength  of 
the  native  army,  and  then  let  those  who  are  competent  for  the  task  set 
to  work  to  organise  it. 

How  absolutely  necessary  this  cautious  policy  was,  was  proved 
by  the  rising  on  the  very  day  of  the  assault  on  Delhi,  of  the  wild 
tribes  who  inhabited  the  still  wilder  country  lying  between  Mooltan 
and  Lahore.  This  region,  extending  from  the  right  bank  of  the 
Sutlej  away  to  and  beyond  the  Ravi,  was  inhabited  by  pastoral  and 
almost  nomad  races,  who  cultivated  little  ground  but  owned  large 
herds  of  cattle.  It  contained  leagues  upon  leagues  of  low  stunted 
brushwood,  and  almost  pathless  wastes  of  waving  grass,  which  rose 
high  above  the  heads  of  those  who  essayed  to  traverse  it.  It  was 
the  natural  home  of  the  cattle  breeder  and  the  cattle  stealer.  The 
Sikhs  had  lost  two  small  armies  in  seeking  to  clear  or  penetrate  it, 
and  the  English  rule,  though  it  had  opened  up  some  tracts  through 
the  bush,  and  had  succeeded  in  checking  the  practices  of  the 
wild  inhabitants,  had  not  been  able  to  eradicate  them  altogether. 
John  Lawrence  himself  had  been  disagreeably  surprised  in  his  visit 
to  Mooltan,  a  few  years  before,  to  find  how  many  traces  of  the  cat- 
tle-lifter his  province  still  retained.  And  now  the  long  delay  in 
the  capture  of  Delhi  had,  here  too,  produced  its  natural  result. 
The  prisoners  who  had  escaped  from  the  Agra  jail  flocked  to  this 


204  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1S57-59 

wild  region  as  to  their  proper  sanctuary,  and  by  telling  or  foretelling 
to  the  credulous  inhabitants  the  destruction  of  the  English  Raj,  had 
persuaded  them  that  the  king  of  Delhi  was  himself  approaching  ! 

On  September  16,  to  the  dismay  of  the  authorities,  no  dawk 
arrived  at  Lahore  from  Mooltan,  or  at  Mooltan  from  Lahore.  In 
other  words,  the  one  channel  of  communication  between  the  capital 
of  the  Punjab  and  the  outer  world  was  closed.  The  interruption 
was  soon  explained  ;  for,  late  in  the  evening  of  that  day,  a  messen- 
ger arrived  in  hot  haste  from  Lieutenant  Elphinstone  at  Gogaira, 
who  told  the  Chief  Commissioner,  '  with  a  malicious  twinkle  of  the 
eye,'  that  the  Khurrals  were  in  arms  10,000  strong,  and  were  march- 
ing on  Gogaira  to  plunder  and  burn  it,  by  order,  as  they  said,  of  the 
king  of  Delhi,  while  the  Khutties  had  stopped  the  Mooltan  dawk, 
had  appropriated  the  horses,  and  disarmed  the  road  police. 

There  was  not  a  man  who  could  be  well  spared  at  that  moment 
from  Lahore.  But  the  energy  and  determination  of  the  Chief  Com- 
missioner once  more  shone  brilliantly  forth.  The  news  reached  him 
at  8  P.M.,  and  he  at  once  rode  down  to  Mean  Meer,  to  see  what 
men  he  could  best  send.  By  twelve  o'clock  that  night  200  of 
Wales'  Cavalry  were  actually  off,  and  by  three  o'clock  on  the  fol- 
lowing morning  three  guns,  one  company  of  European  Infantry, 
one  of  Police  Infantry,  and  fifty  Police  Horse  were  off  after  them, 
all  starting  under  the  eye  and  with  the  God-speed  of  the  Chief 
Commissioner,  and  accompanied  by  his  most  trusted  orderly  Sirdar 
Nihal  Sing.  The  cavalry  made  the  whole  distance  of  eighty-three 
miles  in  one  continuous  march,  and  the  rest  of  the  force,  following 
as  best  they  could,  arrived  just  an  hour  before  the  station  of  Go- 
gaira was  attacked,  just  in  time,  that  is,  to  save  it.  They  repelled 
the  assailants,  and  next  day,  assuming  the  offensive,  they  killed 
Ahmed  Khan,  the  chief  of  the  Khurrals,  and  his  son,  burnt  the 
chief  village,  and  took  a  number  of  prisoners. 

But  John  Lawrence  was  not  more  ready  to  put  down  rebellion 
with  a  strong  hand  than  to  enjoin  moderation  in  punishing  the 
offenders  and  to  redress  any  real  or  legitimate  grievances.  In  a  letter 
to  Elphinstone,  which  accompanied  the  reinforcements,  he  says  : — 

I  hear  that  tlie  Khurrals  had  been  vexed  by  the  police,  that  horses  had 
been  bought  by  their  interference  at  lower  figures  than  the  owners 
liked,  that  others  have  been  called  on  to  serve  who  have  no  fancy  for  it, 
and  the  like.  Now  all  this  is  bad  ;  wrong,  morally  and  politically.  I 
beg  you  will  see  to  these  matters  at  once.  Of  course,  everything  like 
insurrection  must  be  put  down  with  a  strong  hand.  But  all  causes  of 
complaint  sliould  be  avoided,  and  v.'here  they  have  occurred  removed. 


1857-59  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   A  CONQUEROR.  205 

And  again,  ten  days  later,  when  the  first  success  had  been 
achieved  : — 

I  am  glad  (he  says)  to  hear  of  your  success.  You  can  try  and  punish 
capitally  a  few  of  the  ringleaders.  Don't  hang  too  many,  I  would  say 
not  more  than  ten  per  cent.,  and  less,  if  example  below  that  proportion 
will  suffice.  Do  not  send  back  the  Europeans  and  guns  just  now.  Keep 
them  until  you  serve  out  the  chief  offenders.  Their  presence  will  be 
useful.  If  Futteypore-Gogaira  is,  just  now,  unhealthy,  encamp  them  in 
a  suitable  and  healthy  place.  Act  vigorously.  Clear  the  country  of 
rascals.  Re-establish  your  road  police,  and  make  the  tribe  who  de- 
stroyed the  posts  pay  for  the  extra  men  necessary  to  occupy  them 
securely.  This  will  teach  them  to  behave  themselves  in  future.  The 
whole  of  the  monthly  expense  should  be  borne  by  them.  .  .  .  Let  the 
Khutties  off,  but  frighten  them  horribly. 

The  authorities  at  Mooltan,  meanwhile,  had  been  as  prompt  as 
those  at  Lahore  ;  and  Crawford  Chamberlain,  rising  from  a  sick 
bed,  had  pushed  forward  with  a  few  of  his  trusty  horse  towards  the 
point  of  danger  ;  and  though  he  heard  drums  beating  in  all  parts 
of  the  jungle,  he  met  with  no  resistance.  The  enemy  was  every- 
where to  be  heard  ;  nowhere  to  be  seen.  He  reached  the  Serai  of 
Chichawrutni,  and  then,  as  though  some  Roderick  Dhu  had  given 
*  the  signal  shrill '  to  the  lurking  warriors  of  some  new  Clan  Alpine, 
they  all  sprang  to  light  and  life  ; 

Instant,  through  copse  and  heath  arose 
Bonnets  and  spears  and  bended  bows  ; 
On  right,  on  left,  above,  below 
Sprang  up  at  once  the  lurking  foe  ; 
From  shingles  grey  their  lances  start, 
The  bracken  bush  sends  forth  the  dart, 
The  rushes  and  the  willow-wand 
Are  bristling  into  axe  and  brand, 
And  every  tuft  of  broom  gives  life 
To  plaided  warrior  armed  for  strife. 

With  the  help  of  a  breast  work — resembling  one  which  is  better 
known  to  fame  in  Zululand,  but  is  hardly  perhaps  more  deserving 
of  it — composed  of  the  saddles  of  his  troopers,  of  their  tents  and 
of  their  bedding,  Crawford  Chamberlain  managed,  for  five  days,  to 
keep  the  overwhelming  numbers  of  his  assailants  at  bay.  In  vain 
did  the  insurgents  approach  the  chief  native  officer  of  his  regiment, 
Birkut  Ali,  whose  splendid  fidelity  had  saved  his  master  from  death 
again  and  again  at  Mooltan — with  offers  of  the  Command  in  Chief 
of  their  army,  if  only  he  would  join  them   and  give  up  the  five 


206  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

Feringhees  who  accompanied  the  force.  '  If  you  wish  to  get  at 
them,'  repHed  Birkut  AU,  'you  must  do  so  over  my  dead  body.' 

At  last  the  simultaneous  arrival  of  troops  from  Lahore  and  from 
Mooltan  enabled  Chamberlain  to  drive  back  the  rebels  into  the 
jungles,  and,  henceforward,  the  difficulty  was  not  so  much  to  beat 
as  to  find  them.  It  was  the  height  of  the  rainy  season.  The  veg- 
etation was  more  than  usually  rank  and  malarious,  and  was  much 
too  wet  to  burn.  Its  secret  passages  were  known  to  the  enemy, 
unknown  to  us.  Once  fairly  entangled  in  it,  our  men  would  not 
have  easily  found  their  way  out  again.  On  one  occasion  a  small 
party  of  horsemen,  finding  themselves,  almost  unawares,  within  it, 
drew  together  to  consult  as  to  their  whereabouts.  They  had  been 
talking  for  some  minutes  in  a  small  circle  when  a  child's  cry  was 
heard  in  their  very  midst.  Amazed  they  leapt  off  their  horses, 
and  beneath  the  tall  matted  grass,  which  stood  as  high  as  their 
heads,  they  found  huddled  together  a  whole  party  of  panic-stricken 
native  women  and  children.  Happily  for  us,  it  was  the  only  trace 
of  the  rebels  which  we  found  that  day.  Doubtless,  the  fathers  and 
husbands  were  not  far  off  ;  and  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that 
the  terror  of  the  wives  and  children  was  soon  removed  by  the  kind- 
ness of  Chamberlain's  rough  troopers. 

In  a  country  so  impracticable  and  impenetrable,  it  was  obvious 
that  the  struggle  might  be  prolonged  for  months.  The  rebellion 
was  never  formidable  in  itself — for  the  rebels  were,  many  of  them, 
armed  only  with  clubs  and  stones  and  pitch-forks — but,  so  long  as 
the  embers  were  smouldering,  they  might,  at  any  time,  be  fanned 
into  a  flame  which,  spreading  from  Doab  to  Doab,  might  envelope 
the  whole  southern  Punjab  in  a  prairie-like  conflagration.  Hence 
the  extreme  anxiety  of  the  Chief  Commissioner,  evidenced  alike  by 
his  letters  and  his  acts,  to  bring  the  struggle  to  an  early  termination. 
He  called  up  contingents  from  Lahore,  from  Mooltan,  from  Leia, 
from  Jhung,  and  from  Hissar,  which  soon  began  to  close  in  on  the 
districts  occupied  by  the  insurgents.  Some  important  stations, 
such  as  Koti-Kumalia  and  Hurrippa,  which  had  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  rebels  and  had  been  sacked,  were  easily  recovered. 
But  it  was  not  so  easy  to  get  at  the  offenders  and  to  arrange  for 
combined  action  between  half-a-dozen  officers  separated  from  each 
other  by  leagues  of  trackless  jungle.  I  quote  here  a  few  extracts 
from  Sir  John  Lawrence's  letters,  which  will  illustrate  his  caution 
and  his  vigour  as  well  as  his  impatience  of  delay. 

It  is  very  odd  if  with  three  Movable  Columns  going  about  in  the  way 
I   have  pointed  out,  you  can't  dispose  of  the  insurijents.     Have   small 


i8S7-59         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  20/ 

parapets  of  mud  and  stone  made  to  each  Serai,  with  loopholes.  Put  the 
levies  in  them  with  a  week's  provisions,  and  try  and  keep  open  the  road 
and  send  on  the  dawk.  A  constant  patrolling  up  and  down  would  do 
good.  Build  towers  like  those  in  the  Peshawur  valley,  where  the  jungle 
is  dangerous  from  its  thickness.  I  think  the  guns  are  an  encumbrance. 
We  do  no  good  with  them  and  they  prevent  the  troops  moving  rapidly. 
Send  them  back.     They  are  only  fit  for  a  cantonment. 

To  Crawford  Chamberlain,  whom  he  wished  to  appoint  to  the 
command  of  the  whole  operations,  he  writes  : — 

You  are  to  command  the  troops  now  with  Paton.  We  have  missed 
several  good  opportunities  of  serving  out  the  insurgents.  One  time  the 
guns  do  nothing,  and  are  mismanaged,  open  too  soon,  and  so  forth. 
Another  time  the  cavalry  don't  charge,  but  are  kept  to  guard  the  guns  ; 
and  so  nothing  is  done.  I  have  no  doubt  that  you  will  infuse  life  and 
energy  into  them  all,  and,  apparently,  it  is  a  good  deal  required.  Hith- 
erto the  insurgents  seem  to  have  had  it  all  their  own  way,  and  have 
fairly  baffled  us. 

But  Chamberlain  preferred  to  remain  with  his  regiment,  which  had 
so  well  stuck  by  him,  and  so  John  Lawrence  called  up  Major 
Hamilton,  the  Commissioner  of  Mooltan,  to  take  the  command. 

I  cannot  delay  any  longer.  It  will  never  do  for  this  insurrection  to 
spread,  and  spread  it  will,  unless  prompt  measures  for  its  suppression 
be  adopted.  ...  I  could  cry  with  vexation  when  I  see  the  opportunities 
which  we  have  missed.  We  cannot  have  less  than  twelve  or  fourteen 
thousand  troops  after  these  wretches,  the  greater  portion  armed  only 
with  clubs. 

But  whatever  his  vexation  he  never  authorised  the  wholesale 
destruction  of  property,  or  the  slaughter  in  cold  blood  of  prisoners 
taken  in  war.  On  the  contrary,  he  strongly  condemned  such  acts. 
Cruelty  he  always  called  by  its  right  name,  and  never  mistook  for 
vigour. 

I  am  not  aware  of  any  orders  which  I  have  given  for  burning  villages. 
I  believe  I  have  given  no7ie  whatever  on  this  subject.  If  I  have,  please 
quote  them.     I  would  only  burn  villages  where  the  inhabitants  resist  us. 

.   .   .  I  hear  that  Mr. before  he  retreated  from  Koti  Kumalia  caused 

all  his  prisoners  to  be  shot.  I  beg  that  he  may  not  be  employed  again 
in  any  military  expedition.  This  is  not  the  way  to  put  down  the  insu-;- 
rection.  I  think  that  some  investigation  into  his  conduct  should  be 
made  hereafter. 

To  Crawford  Chamberlain,  on  whom  his  chief  reliance  seems  to 


208  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

have  been  placed,  and  rightly  placed,  throughout,  he  writes,  on 
October  19  : — 

Do  wliat  you  can.  I  will  not  hurry  you.  Take  your  time,  but  thrash 
the  fellows  somehow.  Run  no  unnecessary  risks.  I  think  by  burning 
and  cutting,  and  cutting  and  burning  the  jungle,  you  will  at  least  make 
a  hole  in  it.  Try  and  get  the  various  detachments  to  act  as  far  as  pos- 
sible in  unison.  This  seems  the  only  way  to  straighten  the  enemy  and 
get  at  them.  If  each  man  acts  off  his  own  bat  at  his  own  discretion, 
no  good  can  come  of  it. 

At  last  the  rebels  committed  the  mistake  of  concentrating  their 
forces  in  a  famous  jungle  stronghold  called  JuUi.  They  were  at- 
tacked by  Hamilton  on  one  side,  and  by  Chamberlain  on  the  other  ; 
and  seeing  that  the  game  was  up  they  bolted  for  the  Sutlej  and 
Bahawulpore.  Chamberlain  was  unable  to  overtake  them,  and 
they  had  been  provident  enough  to  drive  off  their  cattle,  before 
the  outbreak,  into  jungles,  where  they  thought  the  English  would 
never  be  able  to  find  them.  But  the  services  of  trackers  were 
called  in,  and  Chamberlain,  after  following  the  trail  for  many  a  long 
hour,  had  the  satisfaction  of  bringing  forth  from  their  hiding  places 
fifteen  hundred  head  of  cattle,  and  thousands  of  sheep  and  goats  ! 
The  proceeds  of  their  sale  paid  most  of  the  cost  of  the  rising,  and, 
by  the  middle  of  November,  this  troublesome  business  was  at  an 
end. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  insurrection  which,  for  clear- 
ness sake,  I  have  here  followed  in  outline  from  its  beginning  to  its 
close,  was  the  only  or  the  chief  cause  of  anxiety  during  the  months 
which  followed  the  fall  of  Delhi.  In  one  essential  particular,  to 
which  I  shall  presently  have  to  refer  in  detail — the  care  of  the 
city  and  the  district  in  which  it  lay — Sir  John  Lawrence's  anxiety 
was  to  be  enormously  increased.  But  besides  this  he  had  to  pro- 
vide for  the  return  of  some  of  his  regiments  to  the  Punjab,  while 
he  supplied  their  places  with  fresh  and  ever  fresh  reinforcements  of 
cavalry,  infantry,  and  police  for  the  wider  military  operations  which 
were  going  on  in  the  North-West. 

I  am  anxious  (he  writes  to  Daly,  October  24)  for  the  return  of  the 
Guides  to  the  Punjab,  and  shall  be  glad  to  see  their  old  battered  faces 
again.  I  am  sorry  to  hear  that  your  arm  ie  so  backward.  It  will,  I 
fear,  take  a  long  time  before  it  gets  well.  Thank  God,  the  horizon  is 
beginning  to  clear  up.  I  hope  we  have  seen  the  worst  of  Pandy.  The 
re-settlement  of  Oude,  however,  is  no  joke,  and  where  is  the  man  to 
manage   it  ?     I  have  been  laid  up  for  several  ''ays,  and  am  still  very 


1857-59  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  209 

unwell.     I  see  that  Mansfield  has  joined  Sir  Colin.     How  will  this  sys- 
tem of  having  a  Chief  of  the  Staff  over  both  Adjutants-General  answer  ? 

Arthur  Brandreth,  John  Lawrence's  acting  private  secretary  dur- 
ing the  four  most  critical  months  of  his  life,  had  just  been  called 
away  to  Settlement  work,  and  his  place  was  filled,  during  th^  next 
four  months,  by  Edward  Paske,  a  cousin  of  Lake  ;  and  from  a 
personal  reminiscence  of  his,  I  am  able  to  quote  some  interesting 
paragraphs  which  throw  light,  at  first  hand,  on  Sir  John  Lawrence's 
doings  during  this  period  : — 

Delhi  had  fallen  about  a  fortnight  before  I  joined  the  Secretariat,  and, 
on  arriving  at  Lahore,  I  found  Sir  John  Lawrence  actively  engaged  in 
reinforcing  the  troops,  which  as  soon  as  they  were  relieved  from  siege 
operations,  had  been  formed  into  Movable  Columns  to  follow  the  rebel 
forces  scattered  through  Rohilkund  and  the  North-West  Provinces, 
and  then  concentrating  in  Oude.  The  prompt  activity  which  he  had 
displayed  in  sending  succour  to  the  troops  before  Delhi  was  again  ap- 
parent in  his  exertions  to  reinforce  the  movable  column  after  the  city 
had  been  captured.  Old  and  loyal  chiefs  were  pressed  to  bring  in  their 
retainers.  District  officers  sent  up  recruits,  Sikhs,  Mohammedans, 
Rajpoots  from  the  hills,  with  Mohmunds,  Afridis,  and  Waziris,  and  men 
of  other  frontier  tribes.  These  levies  were  frequently  inspected  by  Sir 
John  himself,  and  were  pushed  on  as  rapidly  as  possible  to  the  front. 

The  selection  of  European  officers  for  the  new  levies  was  a  work  in 
which  he  took  great  pains.  Every  applicant  for  employment  was  allowed 
an  interview  with  him  and  with  his  able  military  secretary,  the  late  Sir 
James  Macpherson.  The  claims  of  one  and  all  were  fairly  considered, 
and  the  selection  made  with  thorough  impartiality.  The  plans  of  our 
Generals,  the  movements  and  operations  of  our  different  columns  were 
watched  and  discussed  by  him  with  soldier-like  precision.  In  the  mili- 
tary department  alone  he  got  through  what  would  have  been  work 
enough  for  one  man.  He  had  never  relaxed  his  efforts  for  the  proper 
discharge  of  the  duties  of  the  Civil  Government,  and  he  turned  with 
renewed  activity  to  them  now  that  he  was  relieved  from  the  strain  to 
which  he  had  been  subjected  during  the  long  months  of  the  siege. 

In  the  foreign  and  political  departments  his  duties  were  particularly 
heavy.  The  attitude  of  the  tribes  along  the  Punjab  frontier  and  Beloo- 
chistan,  the  demeanour  of  some  of  his  own  chiefs,  the  proceedings  of  his 
officers  in  the  punishment  of  rebels  and  in  the  confiscation  of  estates, 
and  the  growing  dissensions  between  the  governments  of  Persia  and 
Afghanistan,  were  all  matters  of  grave  and  immediate  importance. 

When  the  fall  of  Delhi  had  turned  the  tide  of  rebellion,  anrl  the  dis- 
tricts around  were  again  coming  under  peaceful  rule,  much  anxious 
labour  fell  upon  Sir  John  in  regulating  the  retributive  measures  against 
those  who  had  taken  part  with  the  rebels.  Outwardly  stern  and  severe, 
his  seeming  sternness  was  but  the  outcome  of  earnestness  of  purpose 

VOL.  II. — 14 


210  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

and  decision  of  cliaractcr.  He  was  a  simple-minded  Cliristian,  by  nat- 
ure humane  and  very  just,  and  I  i<no\v  he  was  pained  by  the  sweeping 
severity  demanded  by  some  at  a  time  when  he  felt  it  right  to  temper 
justice  with  mercy. 

All  important  reports  and  despatches  from  any  of  his  sul^ordinates 
that  Sif  John  thought  should  be  sent  on  to  Government  were  freely  for- 
warded. He  would  first  read  all  most  carefully,  making  marginal  notes 
on  each,  and  then  passing  his  usual  order,  '  Send  copy  to  the  Govern- 
ment embodying  my  notes  in  the  covering  letter,  and  let  me  see  the  fair 
copy  before  despatched.'  He  was  a  very  rapid,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a 
very  thorough  worker.  He  was  remarkably  swift  in  sifting  and  putting 
aside  all  extraneous  matter  from  any  case  before  him,  readily  seizing  the 
main  point  or  question  at  issue,  and  on  this  his  opinion  was  always  clear, 
well  grounded,  and  decided.  Except  under  very  special  circumstances, 
or  when  papers  were  marked  '  Urgent,'  he  would  never  depart  from  the 
routine  of  taking  up  all  work  in  the  order  in  which  it  came  to  him  from 
the  Secretariat.  If,  on  opening  an  office  box  a  tempting  political  paper 
appeared  under  a  dry  Public  Works  estimate,  it  was  not  looked  at  until 
the  uppermost  pile  had  been  disposed  of. 

Besides  his  unceasing  labour  in  the  discharge  of  his  ordinary  duties, 
he  did  everything  in  his  power  for  the  relief  of  the  sick  and  wounded 
who  were,  from  time  to  time,  sent  back  from  the  camp  before  Delhi,  and 
also  for  the  comfort  and  convenience  of  the  widows  and  children  of  those 
who  had  fallen.  He  took  a  great  interest  in  the  organisation  of  the 
transport  train  between  Lahore  and  Mooltan,  and  in  the  placing  of 
steamers  on  the  Indus  for  the  conveyance  of  widows  and  children  who 
were  proceeding  to  the  sea-board  for  embarkation  to  England.  I  can 
recall  an  instance  in  which,  on  receipt  of  a  letter  from  a  widow  lady, 
whose  husband  had  been  killed  near  Delhi,  Sir  John  broke  off  from 
writing  a  most  important  despatch,  and  devoted  much  precious  time  to 
writing  letters  in  order  that  he  might  secure  her  an  advance  of  her  pen- 
sion and  arrange  for  her  passage  from  Lahore  to  Bombay.  She  was  a 
perfect  stranger  to  him.  But  it  was  enough  that  her  husband  had  lost 
his  life  in  the  Mutiny. 

In  my  brief  tenure  of  office  I  saw  much  of  his  real  goodness  and  kind- 
liness of  heart  and  of  his  active  sympathy  for  those  in  distress.  It  was 
all  done  quietly  and  without  ostentation,  and  was  known  only  to  those 
immediately  about  him  from  whom  it  could  not  be  concealed.  I  was 
much  struck  by  his  very  simple  manner  of  life.  When  I  was  his  guest, 
he  rose  early  and  worked  from  morning  till  night,  taking  some  exercise 
in  the  early  morning,  and  allowing  .very  little  time  for  his  meals.  The 
whole  day  was  devoted  to  work  and  the  reception  of  the  many  who 
called  on  him  on  business  or  to  make  personal  applications.  His  even- 
ing drive  was  sometimes  to  the  cemetery,  where,  alone  and  undis- 
turbed, he  would  linger  by  the  grave  of  a  dearly  loved  child  whom  he 
h^d  lost  at  Lahore.  After  a  late  dinner  and  a  talk  over  the  news  and 
events  of  the  day,  he  would  retire  early  to  rest. 


1857-59         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  211 

But  the  gravest  cause  of  anxiety,  during  the  period  of  which  I 
am  speaking,  was  the  condition  of  the  city  and  district  which  Sir 
John  Lawrence  had  known  and  loved  so  well,  which  he  had  ruled 
with  so  much  credit  to  himself  and  so  much  benefit  to  the  inhab- 
itants so  many  years  before,  and  which  now,  in  the  strange  and 
general  overturning  of  everything  by  the  Mutiny,  was  soon  again 
to  become  subject  to  him.  How  this  came  about  requires  explana- 
tion. Colvin,  the  able  and  conscientious — too  conscientious,  per- 
haps, for  such  times — Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  North-West,  to 
whose  charge  Delhi  properly  belonged,  had,  long  since,  been  shut 
up  in  Agra,  unable  to  communicate  Avith  the  outer  world,  and  on 
September  9,  just,  that  is,  before  the  assault  on  the  Mogul  capital 
was  delivered,  had  died,  worn  out  by  disease  of  body  and  anxiety 
of  mind.  He  had  seen  district  after  district  reft  away  from  him. 
He  had  heard  of  the  slaughter  of  men,  women,  and  children,  in  his 
out-lying  stations,  which  he  had  been  powerless  to  avert  or  to 
avenge.  The  times  had  been  too  hard  for  him.  And  now,  after 
making  several  grave  mistakes,  he  passed  away  amidst  the  uncon- 
cealed dislike  and  suspicion  of  many  who,  under  more  favourable 
circumstances,  would  have  most  liked  and  trusted  him.  It  was  a 
cruel  fate,  and  Hervey  Greathed,  his  Agent  and  representative  in 
the  camp  at  Delhi,  a  man  who,  in  spite  of  Nicholson's  hasty  criti- 
cisms, had  done  excellent  and  well-appreciated  service  throughout 
the  siege,  followed  him  to  a  premature  grave,  a  few  days  later,  at 
the  very  moment  of  our  final  triumph. 

Delhi  was  thus  left  without  any  civil  ruler.  Colonel  Fraser,  who 
succeeded  Colvin  as  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  North-West, 
was  still  cut  off  from  the  Mogul  capital  by  a  broad  belt  of  insur- 
rection. And  so,  by  the  general  acclamation  of  soldiers  and  civil- 
ians, not  less  than  by  the  express  request  of  General  Wilson  and  by 
the  unmistakable  fitness  of  things,  it  was  '  instinctively  '  arranged 
that  the  civil  charge  of  the  conquered  city,  with  all  the  vast  inter- 
ests and  difficulties  connected  with  it,  should,  as  soon  as  matters 
had  quieted  down,  fall  once  more  into  the  hands  of  the  man  whom 
all  alike  recognised  as  the  most  fit  for  the  task.  It  was  no  enviable 
duty.  Could  Sir  John  Lawrence  have  gone  down  to  Delhi  at  once, 
in  possession  of  the  '  full  powers  '  for  which  he  had  so  often  asked 
in  vain,  and  could  he  have  been  free  to  give  his  whole  time  and 
energies  to  the  task,  doubtless,  in  the  general  confusion  that  pre- 
vailed, many  things  would  still  have  been  done  which  had  better 
have  remained  undone,  and  some  few  things,  even  with  his  energy, 
must  have  remained  undone  which  would  have  been  better  for  the 


212  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

doing  ;  but  it  is  easy  to  see  how  much  spirit  would  have  been  in- 
fused into  the  military  operations,  how  much  property  would  have 
been  saved,  how  many  innocent  lives  spared.  Unfortunately  this 
could  not  be.  His  hands  were  full  to  overflowing  in  his  own  prov- 
ince. Moreover,  situated  as  Delhi  then  was,  amidst  a  hostile  and 
predatory  population,  while  large  bands  of  mutineers  were  still  iu 
the  neighbourhood,  and  while  the  military  interests  which  depended 
on  our  holding  the  place,  now  that  we  had  retaken  it,  were  so  vital, 
martial  law  was,  perhaps,  a  necessity  ;  a  horrible  necessity  certainly, 
but  still  a  necessity.  If,  as  the  Duke  of  Wellington  observed,  there 
is  only  one  thing  which  is  more  terrible  than  defeat,  and  that  is  vic- 
tory, we  may  surely  say  with  equal  truth,  that  to  govern  Delhi,  its 
conquerors  and  its  conquered,  under  the  circumstances  in  which  it 
fell  into  our  hands,  was  only  less  difficult  and  less  distressing  than 
to  have  faced  a  repulse  from  before  its  walls.  Happily,  the  Mili- 
tary Governor  appointed  by  General  Wilson  to  bridge  over  the  in- 
terval was  Colonel  Henry  Pelham  Burn,  a  man  whom  Sir  John 
Lawrence  knew  well,  and  liked  much,  and  whose  influence,  so  far 
as  it  extended,  would  certainly  be  on  the  side  of  moderation  and 
of  humanity  ;  while  Greathed's  post  fell  to  Charles  Saunders,  an 
old  Punjabi  magistrate,  a  friend  of  both  the  Lawrences,  and  a  man 
who  was  equally  averse  to  all  unnecessary  bloodshed.  To  repress 
disorder,  to  bring  the  guilty  few  to  justice,  and  to  protect  the  in- 
nocent or  pardonable  masses  was  the  object  of  both  Pelham  Burn 
and  Saunders  throughout.  But  to  enforce  their  views  on  others, 
and  in  the  excited  state  in  which  men's  minds  then  were,  to  prevent 
outrages  of  every  description  upon  person  and  property,  was  diffi- 
cult or  impossible. 

The  condition  of  the  victorious  army,  composed  as  it  was  of  men 
of  various  races  and  religions — the  Europeans  forming  only  a  small 
fraction  of  the  whole — Avas  much  what  might  have  been  expected. 
The  bonds  of  discipline  had  been  relaxed  during  the  long  tension 
of  the  siege.  The  men  had  dared  and  suffered  much,  and  they  had 
now  burst  into  the  doomed  city  athirst  for  drink,  for  plunder,  and 
for  revenge.  No  quarter  was  given  to  the  Sepoys  who  had  been 
untrue  to  their  salt,  and  who  in  the  logic  of  conquerors,  might  be 
regarded  as  all  equally  guilty  of  the  blood  of  English  women  and 
children.  But  of  these  a  large  portion,  after  disputing  bravely  our 
advance  towards  the  Palace,  had  preferred  to  escape  in  armed 
bodies,  and  so  to  prolong  the  war  elsewhere,  rather  than  be  slaugh- 
tered like  rats  in  a  hole.  A  large  part  of  the  population  had  also — 
happily  for  us  and  for  themselves — flocked  out  of  the  city  as  we 


1857-59        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  213 

entered  it.  The  worst  horrors,  therefore,  of  the  most  horrible  of 
human,  or  inhuman,  spectacles — when,  that  is,  a  city,  which  has  been 
taken  by  storm,  is  given  over  with  its  hapless  inhabitants  to  the 
mercies  of  a  merciless  soldiery — were  absent.  It  fared  ill  indeed 
with  those  few  natives  who,  trusting  to  their  friendly  feelings  to- 
wards us  or  wearied  out  with  the  sufferings  which  they  had  under- 
gone at  the  hands  of  their  own  countrymen,  thought  more  of  sav- 
ing their  houses  or  the  remnant  of  their  property  than  their  lives. 
Few  of  these  escaped.  But  thanks  to  the  orders  of  General  Wilson 
and  the  chivalrous  exertions  of  the  English  officers,  the  women 
and  children  were  treated  mercifully,  and  were,  as  far  as  could  be, 
passed  on,  uninjured,  out  of  the  city. 

The  danger  which  had  threatened  the  very  existence  of  our 
army  on  the  day  after  the  assault,  had  been  lessened  by  General 
Wilson's  order  that  all  wine  and  spirits  should  be  at  once  destroyed. 
But  a  more  potent  incentive  to  active  exertion  on  the  part  of  the 
conquerors  was  now  to  be  found  in  their  wild  desire  for  plunder. 
*  Loot '  is  a  word  of  Eastern  origin,  and  for  a  couple  of  centuries 
past — ever  since,  that  is,  the  cruel  murder  of  one  of  their  Gurus  by 
the  Mogul  emperor — the  looting  of  Delhi  had  been  the  daydream 
of  the  most  patriotic  among  the  Sikh  race.  Delhi  contained,  they 
knew  well,  vast  quantities  of  costly  furniture,  of  jewellery,  of  plate, 
and  of  money  ;  and  if  three  days  for  looting  had  not  been  allowed 
them  by  the  authorities,  they  would,  probably,  have  taken  it  fot 
themselves.  In  order  to  put  some  restraint  upon  the  predatory 
instincts  of  individuals.  Prize  Agents  were  appointed,  selected  by 
the  soldiers  themselves,  whose  business  it  would  be  at  the  end  of 
the  three  days  to  collect  what  was  left,  to  sell  it  for  what  it  would 
fetch,  and  divide  the  proceeds  fairly  among  the  men.  But  little 
was  the  all  that  the  Prize  Agents  did  or  cared  to  do.  With  the 
Sikhs  and  other  Punjabi  races  looting  had  been  raised  to  the  dig- 
nity of  a  fine  art,  and  it  was  not  likely  that  they  would  use  their 
professional  knowledge  for  the  benefit  of  mere  bunglers.  Like 
hounds  drawing  a  cover,  they  took  street  by  street,  and  entering 
one  deserted  house  after  another,  tapped  each  wall  or  panel  with 
the  delicate  touch  of  an  artist,  poured  water  over  the  floors,  ob- 
serving where  it  sank  through  fastest,  and  then,  as  though  they  had 
been  gifted  with  the  eye  of  the  eagle,  the  ear  of  the  Red  Indian, 
or  the  nose  of  the  bloodhound,  cut  their  way  straight  through  to 
the  cranny  or  the  cupboard,  or  the  underground  jars  which  con- 
tained the  savings  of  a  lifetime  or  of  generations.  Hai)pily,  it  was 
a  city  of  the  dead  which  they  were  plundering.     They  saw  no  liv- 


214  LIFE  OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

ing  thing  to  remind  them  of  the  luckless  inhabitants  except  a 
number  of  cats,  which,  with  their  strange  local  fidelity,  clung  to 
the  end  to  the  homes  which  their  owners  had  abandoned,  or  crept 
wonderingly  from  house  to  house,  searching  for  them  in  vain.  The 
shattered  buildings,  the  putrefying  or  half  devoured  corpses  ;  the 
splendid  pieces  of  furniture  which  would  not  pay  for  removal, 
ruthlessly  broken  to  pieces  or  thrown  out  into  the  roads  ;  the  help- 
less and,  at  least,  half  innocent  population  who  were  perishing  in 
the  surrounding  villages — altogether — went  to  form  a  scene  which, 
as  we  look  back  upon  it  in  cooler  blood,  might  well,  we  think,  have 
moved  a  heart  of  stone. 

Sunt  lacrynicC  rerum  et  mentem  mortalia  tangunt. 

Efforts  were  made  by  Pelham  Burn,  Chamberlain,  Saunders, 
and  others  to  save  from  the  general  wreck  certain  streets  belonging 
to  the  wealthier  inhabitants,  who  were  known  to  have  been  friendly 
to  us,  and  who  had  already  suffered  enough  in  the  depredations  to 
which  they  had  been  exposed  at  the  hands  of  their  own  countrymen, 
during  the  short-lived  resurrection  of  the  Mogul  monarchy.  But 
their  exertions  were  crowned  with  very  little  success.  Hodson 
and  his  troopers,  outdoing  all  the  rest  in  the  race  for  plunder,  as 
they  had  outdone  them  before  in  point  of  enterprise  and  valour, 
were  not  to  be  restrained  by  any  sentiment  of  moderation  or  of 
humanity.  Hodson  himself  was  everywhere  to  be  seen  appropria- 
ting vast  stores  of  valuables,  which  were  revealed,  for  the  first  time, 
in  their  entirety,  to  the  eyes  of  those  whose  painful  duty  it  wa's  to 
open  his  boxes  after  he  had  met  his  death  at  Lucknow. 

But  the  sight  which  must  have  appealed  most  vividly  to  the  his- 
toric imagination  was  the  Palace  itself,  the  Palace  which  recalled 
the  memories  of  some  of  the  most  splendid  of  Eastern  sovereigns  ; 
which,  more  recently,  had  been  allowed,  even  under  English  in- 
fluence, to  remain  the  chartered  seat  of  so  many  debaucheries  and 
villainies  ;  and,  in  more  recent  days  still,  had  been  stained  with 
the  blood  of  so  many  English  women  and  children.  It  was  a  scene 
which  must  have  recalled  to  some  at  least  of  those  Avho  witnessed 
it  the  moving  description  in  the  second  -^^neid  of  the  fall  of  the 
city,  the  palace,  and  the  last  king  of  Troy.  There,  was  the  great 
gateway  of  the  Palace  burst  open  by  the  besiegers.  There  the 
noble  galleries  and  the  stately  privacy  of  the  last  of  a  long  line  of 
kings  exposed  to  the  vulgar  view,  and  armed  men,  but  not  its  nat- 
ural guardians,  crowding  on  the  sacred  threshold.  There  was  the 
long  succession  of  chambers,  in  literal  truth. 


1857-59        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  21 5 

Those  fifty  nuptial  chambers  fair, 
That  promised  many  a  princely  heir  ; 
Those  pillared  doors  in  pride  erect, 
With  gold  and  spoils  barbaric  decked. 

And  there,  once  more,  was  the  poor  old  King,  the  helpless  bauble 
or  puppet  of  the  mutineers,  ejected  from  his  palace,  confined  to  a 
single  room,  about  to  be  tried  for  his  life,  and  exposed  to  the  scoffs 
and  insults  of  officers  and  soldiers  ;  while,  round  about  him,  were 
his  Queen  and  the  Princesses  of  the  royal  house,  huddling  together, 
like  Hecuba  and  her  daughters,  in  vain  attempting  to  hide  them- 
selves from  the  wanton  gaze — which  to  an  Eastern  lady  is  a  worse 
shame  than  death — of  the  curious  or  the  cruel.  Happiest,  or  least 
unhappy,  of  that  miserable  crew  was  the  old  King  himself,  who,  in 
his  second  childhood,  his  mere  oblivion,  sa7is  teeth,  sans  eyes,  sans 
sense,  sans  everything,  seemed  almost  unconscious  of  his  misery 
and  his  shame.' 

Some  Englishmen  there  were  whom  the  sights  around  moved  to 
pity,  and  who  did  all  that  they  could,  both  by  precept  and  example, 
to  lessen  their  horrors.  There  were  others  who,  stung  to  madness 
by  the  loss  of  wife,  or  child,  or  friends,  or  property,  thirsted  like 
tigers  for  more  of  the  blood  which  they  had  just  begun  to  taste  ; 
and  complaining  that  enough  was  not  being  done  by  the  authorities, 
set  to  work  with  gusto  to  do  it  themselves,  or  in  letters  written  from 
a  distance — some  of  which  lie  at  this  moment  before  me — pressed 
with  terrible  emphasis  that  '  more  vigour'  should  be  shown,  and  a 
'  sweeping  vengeance  '  taken.  Some,  in  the  true  spirit,  of  Roman 
savagery,  urged  that  the  city  itself,  the  pride  and  the  historic 
capital,  the  Rome  of  India,  should  be  levelled  with  the  ground  and 
its  site  sown  with  salt.  Others,  in  the  still  worse  spirit  of  religious 
savagery,  urged  that  the  Jumma  Musjid,  one  of  the  noblest  Muslim 
buildings  in  the  world,  should  be  destroyed,  or,  at  least,  that  the 
Cross  should  be  planted  on  its  summit,  and  that  it  should  be  turned 
bodily  into  a  Christian  Church.  A  strangely  anti-Christian  symbol 
it  would  have  been  of  a  Christian  triumph  !    A  larger  number  urged 

1  'It  was  a  strange  sight,'  says  Sir  Richard  Temple  {Men  and  Events  of  my 
Time  in  India,  p.  135),  who,  four  months  later,  was  an  eyewitness  of  what  he 
narrates,  '  to  see  the  aged  King  seated  in  a  darkened  chamber  of  the  palace. 
The  finely  chiselled  features,  arched  eyebrow,  aquiline  profile,  sickly  pallor  of  the 
olive  complexion,  nervous  twitching  of  the  face,  delicate  fingers  counting  beads, 
muttering  speech,  incoherent  language,  irritable  self-consciousness,  demeanour 
indicating  febrile  excitability — altogether  made  up  a  curious  picture,  upon  which 
no  spectator  could  look  unmoved  who  was  acquainted  with  Asiatic  history.' 


2l6  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

that  the  splendid  Palace  should  be  destroyed,  as  a  sign  which  he  who 
runs  might  read,  that  the  last  of  the  Mogul  dynasty  had  perished 

In  the  blood  that  he  had  spilt, 
Perished  hopeless  and  abhorred, 
Deep  in  ruin  as  in  guilt. 

What  part,  so  far  as  his  influence  could,  as  yet,  make  itself  felt  at 
Delhi,  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  likely  to  take  on  these  and  similar 
questions,  few  who  have  followed  his  biography  thus  far,  will 
have  much  difficulty  in  conjecturing.  Some  of  the  questions  raised 
by  our  reconquest  of  the  town  and  district  were  delicate  and  diffi- 
cult enough.  But  there  were  others  on  which,  with  his  strong  and 
vigorous  sense  of  justice,  he  was  likely  to  give  no  uncertain  sound. 

To  begin  with,  there  were  the  Shahzadas,  or  members  of  the 
royal  family.  A  large  number,  not  less  than  twenty-nine,  of  these 
Princes  had  been  picked  up,  lurking  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
city,  and  there  were  not  wanting  those  who  were  anxious  to  deal 
with  them  in  the  short  and  Hodsonian  method.  *  No,'  said  John 
Lawrence — such  is  the  general  upshot  of  all  his  letters — *  try  them 
fairly,  and  if  they  are  found  guilty  of  having  authorised  or  abetted 
the  massacre  of  English  women  or  children,  by  all  means  condemn 
them  to  death  ;  but  deal  with  no  one  as  Hodson  dealt  with  his  victims.' 
Then  there  were  the  Rajahs  or  Nawabs  of  districts  like  Jhujjur  and 
Bullubghur,  men  who  had  sworn  allegiance  to  the  English  crown, 
and  some  of  whom  owed  all  that  they  possessed  to  English  patron- 
age, but  wlip  had  either  stood  ostentatiously  aloof  from  us  in  the  hour 
of  our  need,  or  had  actually  taken  part  against  us.  Here,  again. 
Sir  John  Lawrence  was  for  even-handed  justice  ;  nothing  less,  but 
nothing  more.  'Reduce  them  to  submission,'  he  said,  'by  such  a 
show  of  military  force  as  will  save  all  unnecessary  bloodshed  ; 
promise  them  a  fair  trial,  and  if  found  guilty,  deal  with  each 
according  to  the  merits  of  his  case.'  Then  there  was  the  starving 
and,  in  great  part,  innocent  population  of  the  city,  whom  we  had 
driven  from  their  homes,  and  whom,  whilst  many  of  the  authorities 
were  for  leaving  where  they  were,  to  live  or  die,  Sir  John  Law- 
rence was  for  bringing  back,  as  soon  as  possible,  under  proper  pre- 
cautions, into  the  city,  and  when  there,  for  protecting  from  the  brutal 
passions  which  the  conflict  had  aroused. 

But  he  shall  speak  on  these  and  other  important  subjects  for 
himself,  and  it  must  be  remembered  throughout  that  I  am  quoting 
from  letters  which  were  written  at  a  time  when  to  talk  of  mercy  or 
of  moderation  was  regarded  by  too  many  as  the  sign  of  a  craven  or 


1857-59         JOHN    LAWRENCE  AS  A  CONQUEROR.  21/ 

unpatriotic  spirit.  They  thus  show  the  true  character  of  the  man. 
They  show  whether  he  could  be  as  merciful  after  victory  as  he  was 
prompt,  and  vigorous,  and  stern  while  it  was  wavering  in  the  bal- 
ance ;  whether  the  famous  Minute  in  which,  to  his  lasting  credit, 
he  said  that  he  had  been  anxious  to  be  the  first  to  strike,  but  was 
still  more  anxious  to  be  the  first  to  abstain  from  striking,  was  justi- 
fied by  his  acts  or  not.  Incidentally,  they  also  show  what  a  keen 
eye  he  had  for  the  military  necessities  of  our  position,  how  anxious 
he  was  for  the  adequate  protection  of  what  we  had  already  won, 
and  for  the  immediate  despatch  of  a  pursuing  force. 

To  General  Wilson,  whom  for  a  month  previously  he  had  urged 
to  make  every  arrangement  for  following  up  the  rebels,  but  who,  as 
he  thought,  had  been  remiss  in  doing  so,  he  writes  on  September 
26  :— 

It  is  satisfactory  to  find  that  the  pursuing  column  has  started.  .  .  . 
The  Palace,  no  doubt,  is  not  a  defensible  place  against  discipUned  troops. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  admirably  placed  to  command  the  passage 
of  the  river,  and  is  a  massive  and  solid  building.  A  couple  of  small  bas- 
tions of  mud,  such  as  the  engineers  could  construct  in  a  week,  would 
make  it  capable  of  resisting  anything  likely  to  come  against  it,  and 
enable  us  to  overawe  the  city.  It  is  quite  true,  also,  that  your  avail- 
able force  is  small,  and  has  been  terribly  overworked.  But  it  seems  to 
me  that  we  have  no  option.  We  must  either  go  on  and  put  down  insur- 
rection, or  it  will  gain  head  and  destroy  us.  The  troops  have  done 
wonders,  but  there  can  be  no  rest  from  their  labours  at  present. 

I  do  not  think  that  there  is  the  remotest  chance  of  any  attack  on  your 
position  in  Delhi.  And,  as  to  the  inhabitants,  if  they  return,  I  can  only 
say  that,  setting  aside  what  they  have  lately  suffered,  they  never  at- 
tempted anything  for  fifty  years  under  our  rule,  and  but  for  the  mutiny 
of  our  own  army,  would,  I  believe,  have  remained  quiet  for  fifty  more. 
However,  to  make  sure,  a  few  mortars  on  the  Cashmere  bastions  would, 
doubtless,  do  no  harm. 

To  Pelham  Burn,  the  Military  Governor  of  Delhi,  he  writes  on 
September  30 — only  ten  days,  it  should  be  observed,  after  the  city 
had  fallen  into  our  hands  : — 

As  regards  the  city  people,  I  would  let  them  gradually  and  cautiously 
go  back,  after  completing  the  military  arrangements  for  the  security  of 
tlie  Palace.  W' ith  a  good  battery  to  overawe  the  city,  well  placed  in 
front  of  the  gateway  facing  the  Chandni  Chouk,  all  would  be  snug.  I 
would  hang  all  the  ringleaders  and  leading  characters  in  the  late  insur- 
rection, but  deal  gently  with  all  others.  Nine-tenths  of  the  people  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  outbreak,  and  we  ourselves  were  greatly  to  blame 
for  our  folly  and  weakness. 


2l8  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

To  Charles  Saunders,  the  Agent  of  the  Lieutenant-Gover- 
nor of  the  North-West  Provinces  at  Delhi,  on  October  6,  he 
writes : 

.  .  .  I  am  glad  to  hear  that  you  have  obtained  sufficient  evidence 
against  the  Shahzadas.  It  is  these  kind  of  fellows  that  should  suffer,  and 
not  the  oi  nuXXoi,  unless  proved  to  have  been  active  against  us.  I 
would  have  let  the  mass  of  the  population  back  into  Delhi  under  proper 
restrictions.   It  is  the  poorest  and  most  innocent  who  will  now  suffer.  .  .  . 

To  Saunders  he  writes  again  on  the  following  day  : — 

Should  the  Movable  Column  successfully  accomplish  their  mission  to 
Rewari,  I  should  recommend  to  the  General  commanding  at  Delhi,  that 
the  force  should  move  from  thence  into  Jhujjur  against  the  Nawab.  I 
would  call  on  him  to  surrender,  and  guarantee  him  a  fair  trial.  He 
should  also  surrender  Sunnud  Khan  and  other  notorious  characters. 
It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  not  only  is  he  our  feudatory  and  a  subject 
of  the  British  Government,  but  actually  a  chief  of  our  own  creation.  If 
he  refused  I  should,  without  an  hour's  delay,  attack  him  and  his  aiders 
and  abettors.  The  Builubghur  Raja  and  Nawab  of  Furrucknuggur 
might  subsequently  be  similarly  treated  ;  particularly  the  latter.  The 
former,  I  hear,  is  half  cracked,  and  has  married  into  the  Nabha  family  ; 
so  perhaps  he  might  lie  over  for  a  time. 

To  Neville  Chamberlain,  on  October  8,  he  writes  : — 

I  am  by  no  means  an  advocate  for  slaying  Shahzadas  or  any  other 
such  like  Haramzadahs  without  trial.  On  the  contrary,  I  would  cer- 
tainly give  them  all  a  trial.  I  might  have  sent  a  shot  after  the  old  king 
when  he  was  bolting,  but  I  would  not  have  put  him  to  death  otherwise. 
Indeed,  I  have  always  been  inclined  to  think  that  he  was  the  '  victim  of 
circumstances.'  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  see  the  old  Punjabi  corps  brought 
back  to  their  old  country.  But,  just  at  present,  it  was  essential  that 
some  of  them  should  go  on  further  ;  in  fact,  as  you  know,  the  army 
could  not  do  without  their  services.  ...  I  was  for  holding  the  Palace 
and  that  quarter  of  the  town,  because  I  meant  that  the  inhabitants  should 
return.  With  the  Palace  in  our  hands  and  a  few  guns  on  its  walls,  I 
feel  persuaded  that  a  couple  of  thousand  men  would  overawe  and  con- 
trol the  whole  of  the  people.  When  do  you  propose  returning  to  the 
Punjab  .''  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  you  back,  and  so  will  Macpherson.  We 
have  had  a  weary  time,  one  way  or  the  other,  and  the  work  is  more  than 
is  good  for  us. 

To  Alexander  Taylor  he  writes  on  the  same  day  : — 

I  have  to  congratulate  you  on  your  success  at  Delhi.     I  look  on  it  that 
you  and  Nicholson,  poor  fellow,  are  the  real  captors  of  Delhi  ;  particu- 


1857-59  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  219 

larly  after  Chamberlain  was  wounded.     I  think  the  world  also  gives  you 
credit  for  the  part  you  played. 

I  have  just  been  reading  your  memorandum  as  to  the  best  mode  of 
defending  Delhi.  Now  I  want  to  say  a  few  words  on  this  matter.  It 
seems  to  me  that  General  Wilson  and  you  on  one  side,  and  I  on  the 
other,  desire  two  very  different  objects.  The  point  seems  to  be — which 
of  the  two  is  really  desirable  ?  If  the  object  be  to  defend  the  town  of 
Delhi,  then  you  are  both  quite  right.  I  have  nothing  further  to  say. 
But,  suppose  it  be  desirable  to  let  the  inhabitants  return — which  I  think 
it  is,  so  far  as  the  great  majority  go — could  we  not  manage  to  mount  a 
few  guns  on  the  walls  of  the  Palace,  if  it  were  merely  for  show  ?  Walls 
nine  feet  wide  at  the  top  would,  surely,  bear  nine-pounders;  and  a  few 
peeping  over  would  have  a  sedative  effect.  If  we  are  to  defend  the 
outer  line,  then,  of  course,  we  must  keep  out  the  mass  of  the  people. 
But  against  whom  is  the  place  to  be  defended  ?  There  is  no  force,  that 
I  am  aware  of,  which  can  come  against  it,  Our  reputation  in  having 
taken  it  guards  us  against  attack,  even  if  an  enemy  existed,  which  it 
does  not.  My  idea  is  that  we  should  let  the  people  back  under  proper 
restrictions.  And  this  being  admitted,  can  we  not  secure  ourselves 
better  by  improvising  a  mode  of  arming  the  Palace  with  a  few  guns  so 
as  to  overawe  the  town  ?     Answer  this,  please,  when  time  admits. 

The  merciful  policy  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  thus  eager  to 
recommend  informally,  to  the  authorities  at  Delhi,  he  was  not  back- 
ward in  pressing  on  the  Supreme  Government  ofificially.  As  early 
as  October  9,  he  writes  thus  to  Lord  Canning  : — 

The  Chief  Commissioner  thinks  that  it  would  be  sound  policy  to  allow 
the  inhabitants  to  return.  Delhi  has  long  been  the  oitrepot  of  a  great 
trade,  and  a  place  of  much  social  and  political  importance.  Its  posses- 
sion would,  in  every  point  of  view,  prove  more  useful  to  us  than  its  de- 
struction. However  guilty  some  of  its  inhabitants  may  have  been,  it 
cannot  be  denied,  the  Chief  Commissioner  believes,  by  any  impartial 
person  that  the  majority  were  not  connected  with  the  insurrection,  and 
that  a  large  section  would  even  have  sided  with  us  had  they  had  the 
power.  They  were,  however,  as  is  well  known,  in  the  hands  of  a  mer- 
ciless and  lawless  soldiery.  They  have  suffered  prodigiously  ;  and  it 
would  appear,  therefore,  good  policy  to  allow  those  who  have  survived 
to  return  to  their  homes. 

But  the  remonstrances  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  were  not  to  be  at- 
tended to  just  yet.  He  had  no  authority  to  act.  He  could  only 
advise.  Things  indeed  at  Delhi  were  in  an  altogether  abnormal 
condition.  The  city  was  nominally,  as  I  have  shown,  under  control 
of  a  Military  Governor,  Colonel  Pelham  Burn.  A  Military  Com- 
mission was  sitting  to  try  all  persons  accused  of  rebellion,  and  their 


220  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

sentences  were  executed  forthwith  by  a  Provost-Marshal.'  But  as 
though  this  was  not  enough  for  the  purposes  of  justice  or  repres- 
sion, Special  Commissioners,  '  with  full  powers  of  life  and  death 
vested  in  each  one  of  them,'  had  also  been  appointed  by  the  Su- 
preme Government.  And  one  of  these — if  the  concurrent  testi- 
mony of  everyone  who  knows  the  circumstances  and  with  whom  I 
have  communicated  may  be  trusted — was  not  slow  to  use  the  powers 
that  had  been  entrusted  to  him  in  anything  but  a  judicial  manner. 
He  hunted  down  the  natives  who  were  suspected  of  having  taken 
part  in  the  rioting  Svith  relentless  energy.'  He  would  sally  forth, 
as  his  proceedings  have  been  described  to  me  by  eye-witnesses, 
whose  good  faith  is  beyond  all  question,  at  the  head  of  his  followers, 
and  draw  whole  districts  for  his  game,  few  among  whom  stood 
much  chance  of  escaping  with  their  lives.  Englishmen  who  were 
friendly  to  him,  or  were  at  that  very  time  enjoying  his  hospitality, 
speak,  even  now,  with  bated  breath  of  deeds  of  which  they  were 
the  unwilling  and  the  disgusted  witnesses. 

In  early  days  indeed,  while  the  blood  of  the  victors  was  still  at 
fever  heat,  there  is  reason  to  fear  that  the  Special  Commissioner  in 
question  reflected,  only  too  faithfully,  the  feelings  of  many  Euro- 
peans alike  in  the  city  and  at  a  distance.  Charles  Saunders,  who 
put  no  one  to  death  himself,  who  treated  the  imbecile  king  and  his 
son  with  something  of  the  compassion  due  to  fallen  greatness  and 
the  extremes  of  youth  and  age,  and,  to  his  lasting  credit,  was  re- 
buked by  the  fiery  spirits  who  surrounded  him  for  his  '  ill-timed 
leniency,'  was  unable  to  put  any  check  upon  his  colleagues.  A  four- 
square gallows  was  erected  in  a  public  place  at  Delhi,  which  soon 
became  a  fashionable  lounge.  A  knowing  native  shopkeeper 
arranged  chairs  in  front  of  his  shop,  and  on  these  English  officers 
would  smoke  their  cigars  and,  for  the  payment  of  a  small  sum,  look 
on  at  the  death  agonies  of  the  men  who  dangled  in  groups  from  all 
four  cross  beams  at  once,  and  whose  bodies  were  soon  deftly 
dropped  one  on  the  top  of  another,  into  a  cart  beneath,  to  make 
room  for  fresh  victims.  On  one  occasion  a  batch  of  ten  or  a  dozen 
men  were  brought  before  the  Commission.  There  was  no  evidence 
whatever   against   them,  but  it   was   remarked   they   looked   like 

'  'Offenders,'  says  the  able  and  dispassionate  author  of  the  History  of  the 
Siege  of  Delhi  {y>.  280),  who  was  an  eyewitness  of  what  he  relates,  'offenders 
who  were  seized  were  handed  over  to  a  military  commission  to  be  tried.  The 
work  went  on  with  celerity.  Death  was  almost  the  only  punishment,  and  con- 
demnation almost  the  only  issue  of  a  trial.  The  gentlemen  who  had  to  judge 
offenders  were  in  no  mood  for  leniency. 


1857-59  JOHN   LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  221 

soldiers,  or  as  if  they  had,  at  one  time,  borne  arms  ;  and  that  was 
enough.     They  were  soon  all  hanging  from  the  gallows.' 

Pudet  hsc  opprobria  nobis 
Et  dici  potuisse  et  non  potuisse  refelli. 

These  things  were  not  known  in  their  full  enormity  till  a  later 
period  at  Lahore,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  record  that  those  whom  John 
Lawrence,  in  one  of  his  earlier  letters  half  humourously  calls  '  the 
desperadoes  '  there,  those  who  were  most  delighted  at  the  first  re- 
ports of' 's  energy' — those  who  had  been  loudest  for  dese- 
crating the  Mosque  or  even  destroying  the  town — were  forward 
enough  when  the  full  truth  was  known,  to  condemn  the  acts  of  re- 
venge which  continued  to  signalise  and  to  disgrace  our  rule  for  full 
/aur  months  after  the  city  had  fallen  into  our  hands  and  all  resist- 
ance had  ceased. 

It  has  been  said  by  some  of  those  who  were,  more  or  less,  con- 
cerned in  these  acts,  and  upon  whom  Sir  John  Lawrence's  censures 
fell  most  heavily,  that  he  only  protested  against  them  when  he  found 
it  convenient  to  do  so,  when  public  opinion  in  England  had  already 
declared  itself  against  further  bloodshed,  and  had  had  time  to  make 
itself  felt  in  India  ;  in  fact,  that  he  swam  with  the  stream,  was  for 
indiscriminate  vengeance  when  it  was  the  order  of  the  day,  and  was 
for  clemency  only  when  the  voice  of  outraged  humanity  called  aloud 
for  it  !  How  far  this  was  from  being  the  case,  the  letters  which  I 
have  already  quoted — and  which  began,  I  would  once  more  point 
out,  only  a  few  days  after  the  fall  of  Delhi — will  sufficiently  show  ; 
and  I  proceed  to  give  others  to  the  same  effect,  all  of  them  written 
at  a  time  when  few  dared  to  speak  of  moderation  or  of  mercy.  It  was 
indeed  only  very  gradually  that  he  got  to  know  the  full  truth  of  what 
was  going  on  at  Delhi  ;  for  he  was  the  last  man  to  whom  anyone 

who  was  'tarred  with 's   brush,' would   be  likely  to  report  his 

doings.  '  It  is  too  bad,'  he  says  to  Saunders  on  October  23,  '  the 
way  that  the  troops  are  allowed  to  plunder.  They  will  ere  long,  if 
it  continue,  degenerate  into  a  mere  rabble.' 

A  few  days  later  he  writes  thus  to  Edward  Eraser,  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  the  North-West  : — 

As  regards  the  city  and  fort  of  Delhi,  I  wrote  until  I  was  tired.  I  would 
have  taken  all  the  g-uns  from  the  ramparts  of  the  town,  planted  as  many 

'  I  owe  these  details,  and  many  others  which  I  have  forborne  to  mention, 
chiefly  to  Colonel  Pelham  Burn  and  Sir  Neville  Chamberlain,  who  were  on  tlie 
spot  throughout  and  in  positions  of  responsibility.  There  can,  therefore,  be 
no  higher  authorities. 


222  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

as  I  could  on  the  Palace,  so  as  to  overawe  the  town,  and  let  back  all  the 
peaceable  folks.  I  should  be  happy,  in  case  of  necessity,  to  do  all  that 
was  required  with  a  thousand  men  at  my  back  at  Delhi.  Many  thanks 
for  your  kind  expressions.  I  feel  that  I  only  did  my  duty,  and  many 
have  done  theirs  equally  well. 

As  regards  the  doings  of  the  Prize  Agents,  which  had  been  re- 
ported to  him  by  Colonel  Pelham  Burn  with  many  expressions  of 
horror  and  disgust,  he  writes  back  : — 

I  think  that  you  should  go  over  and  tell  Chamberlain  what  you  have 
written  to  me  about  the  Prize  Agents'  misconduct  at  Delhi.  If  you  do 
not  like  moving  in  the  matter,  and  see  no  objection  to  my  doing  so,  I 
will.  I  think  such  acts  as  you  relate  reflect  disgrace  on  our  national 
character,  and  should  be  put  a  stop  to. 

Some  of  his  friends  wrote  to  him,  as  I  have  already  mentioned, 
expressing  their  earnest  hope  that  he  would  '  plough  up  Delhi '  ; 
others,  that  he  would  at  least  destroy  the  great  Mosque.  In  reply 
to  the  latter  proposal  he  writes  to  Pelham  Burn,  who  had  consulted 
him  in  the  matter,  *  I  will  on  no  account  consent  to  it.  We  should 
carefully  abstain  from  the  destruction  of  religious  edifices  either  to 
favour  friends  or  to  annoy  foes. ' '  And  when  some  of  the  Chief 
authorities  in  his  province,  and  many  of  them  his  intimate  friends, 
came  in  solemn  deputation  to  him  to  urge  the  same  step,  and 
pointed  out,  as  a  convincing  argument,  that  to  destroy  the  finest 
place  of  Muslim  worship  in  the  world  would  be  felt  as  a  blow  to 
their  religion  by  Muslims  everywhere,  he  first  reasoned  out  the 
matter  calmly  with  them.  But  finding  that  he  could  produce  no 
effect,  he  jumped  up  from  his  seat,  and  slapping  the  foremost  of 
them  on  his  back,  said,  *  111  tell  you  what  it  is.  There  are  many 
things  you  could  persuade  me  to  do,  but  you  shall  never  persuade  me 
to  do  this.     So  you  may  as  well  spare  your  pains. ' 

Hodson  had  given  guarantees  for  their  lives  to  some  of  the 
greatest  criminals  in  Delhi.  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  asked  by 
Saunders  whether  these  promises  should  be  respected  or  not.  He 
replied,  as  he  always  did  in  similar  cases,  that  faith  must  be  kept 
whatever  it  cost  us.     '  As  regards  Hodson's   guarantees  I    think 

1  It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  on  this  point  Sir  John  Lawrence  and  his 
noble-hearted  brother,  Sir  Henry,  were  quite  at  one.  When  Sir  Henry,  in  antici- 
pation of  the  outbreak  at  Lucknow,  was  engaged  in  fortifying  the  Muchi  Bannar 
and  was  urged  to  destroy  all  the  great  buildings  in  the  neighbourhood,  some 
towering  mosques  among  them,  which  might  interfere  with  the  defence — '  Spare 
the  holy  places,'  was  his  reply. — Kaye,  ii.  440. 


1857-59  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  223 

they  must  be  respected,  no  matter  under  what  influence  they  were 
given.  He  was  allowed  great  power  by  the  Commander-in-Chief 
and  his  successors,  and  if  he  abused  it,  this  is  between  him  and  his 
conscience,  and  between  him  and  Government.  ...  I  heard  a 
rumour  that  the  Bulhubghur  Raja  is  half-witted.  If  this  be  the 
case  the  Commission  should  be  duly  informed  ;  we  should  not  hang 
beings  who  are  not  able  to  take  care  of  themselves. ' 

To  Lord  Canning  he  writes  on  December  4,  in  terms  which  are 
as  noteworthy  for  their  modesty  as  for  their  humanity  : — 

My  Lord, — Owing-  to  the  difficulty  of  communication,  I  have  never  yet 
written  to  thank  your  Lordship  for  the  very  handsome  acknowledgment, 
publicly  made,  of  my  services.  We  have  all  been  fighting,  not  only  for 
our  lives,  but,  for  what  was  of  infinitely  more  value — the  safety  of  our 
families  ;  and,  I  believe,  there  have  indeed  been  few  who  have  not  done 
their  best. 

I  have  been  more  particularly  fortunate  in  my  officers, who  have  worked 
most  manfully  and  ably  for  the  public  good.  To  none  am  I  so  much 
indebted  as  to  Mr.  Montgomery,  Colonel  Edwardes,  and  Colonel  Mac- 
pherson  ;  always  excepting  my  gallant  and  noble  friend,  John  Nicholson, 
whose  services  were  indeed  invaluable.  I  hope  that  the  Court  of 
Directors  will  mark  their  sense  of  his  merits  by  giving  his  widowed 
mother  a  good  pension. 

I  do  not  know  what  your  Lordship  has  resolved  to  do  with  Delhi. 
But  if  it  is  to  be  preserved  as  a  city,  I  do  hope  that  your  Lordship  will 
put  a  stop  to  the  operations  of  the  Prize  Agents.  I  also  recommend  that 
it  be  freed  from  martial  law.  What  Delhi  requires  is  a  soldier  of  energy, 
spirit,  and  character  to  keep  the  troops  in  order,  and  a  strong  police 
and  a  good  magistrate  to  maintain  the  peace.  Until  there  be  some 
security  for  the  lives  and  property  of  the  natives,  tranquillity  will  not  be 
restored.  I  am  a  strong  advocate  for  prompt  and  severe  punishment 
when  such  has  been  deserved.  But  the  systematic  spoliation  which  I 
understand  goes  on  at  Delhi  cannot  fail  to  exasperate  the  natives,  and 
render  more  wide  and  lasting  the  breach  which  has  taken  place  be- 
tween them  and  us. 

I  cannot  ascertain  that  anything  has  been  done  to  raise  a  corps  or 
battalion  of  police  in  the  North-West.  The  call  still  continues  for  Pun- 
jabis. I  have  sent  one  new  battalion  which  has  been  raised  here  to 
Delhi,  and  am  raising  a  second  for  Mr.  J.  P.  Grant  for  Benares.  I  can, 
of  course,  raise  more  if  necessary,  but  am  averse  to  doing  so.  The  races 
are  more  martial  and  hardy  here  than  in  Hindustan,  but  their  very  mer- 
its make  them  also  the  more  dangerous. 

To  Lord  Elphinstone  he  writes  about  the  same  time  : — 

I  believe  that  the  reports  you  have  heard  of  the  doings  at  Delhi  are 
only  too  true.      They  are  not  only  bad  in  themselves,  but  do  us  infinite 


224  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1S57-59 

harm,  and  serve  to  render  still  wider  the  breach  between  us  and  the 
natives.  I  liave  done  all  I  could  to  remedy  these  evils,  but  I  have  no 
power  to  enforce  my  views,  and  the  General,  though  he  condemns, 
does  not  act.  I  have  written  several  times  to  Calcutta,  but  get  no 
replies.  Martial  law  should  cease  in  Delhi  and  the  Prize  Agents'  func- 
tions be  cut  short  at  once.  These  changes  and  an  officer  of  vigour 
and  decision  to  command  the  troops  and  keep  them  in  order  would  effect 
a  reform. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  had  telegraphed  as  well  as  written  repeatedly 
to  Calcutta  on  these  subjects,  but  for  some  reason  or  other,  most 
probably  because  very  few  of  his  letters  and  telegrams  came  to 
hand,  no  answer  was  returned.  Here  is  one  of  his  telegrams  dated 
November  30  : — 

The  Chief  Commissioner  earnestly  advocates  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Prize  Agents  from  the  city  of  Delhi,  and  trusts  that  the  Supreme  Gov- 
ernment will  interfere  and  save  the  inhabitants  from  further  spoliation. 
Thousands  of  them  took  no  part  against  us.  But  all  are  involved  in  the 
general  ruin. 

Finally,  he  writes  more  strongly  still  to  General  Penny,  who  was 
the  General  in  command,  and  therefore,  perhaps,  more  responsible 
than  anyone  else,  for  not  interfering  with  the  strong  arm  to  prevent 
what  had  happened  : — 

My  dear  General, — Has  any  reply  come  from  Government  about  Prize 
property  ?  I  wish  I  could  induce  you  to  interfere  in  this  matter.  I  be- 
lieve we  shall  lastingly,  and,  indeed,  justly  be  abused  for  the  way  in 
which  we  have  despoiled  all  classes  without  distinction.  But,  surely,  in 
any  case,  two  months  plundering  should  suffice  !  I  hear  complaints  even 
from  Bombay  on  the  subject.  I  have  this  day  sent  you  a  copy  of  a  letter 
from  a  Babu  named  Ram  Chunder,  complaining  of  the  way  he  has  been 
ill-treated  by  English  officers.  I  have  even  heard,  though  it  seems 
incredible,  that  officers  have  gone  about  and  murdered  natives  in  cold 
blood.  You  may  depend  on  it  that  we  cannot  allow  such  acts  to  pass 
unnoticed.  If  we  have  no  higher  motives,  the  common  dictates  of  policy 
should  make  us  restrain  our  countrymen  from  such  outrages.  No  man 
is  more  ready  to  hang  or  shoot  mutineers  and  murderers  than  I  am,  but 
unless  we  endeavour  to  distinguish  friend  from  foe,  we  shall  unite  all 
classes  against  us.  A  guerilla  warfare  will  spring  up,  the  country  will 
gradually  become  desolated,  and,  eventually,  will  be  too  hot  to  contain 
us. 

This  letter  seems  to  have  produced  an  immediate  effect,  at  least 
in  checking  the  disgraceful  operations  of  the  Prize  Agents  ;  for  in 
a  second  letter  to  General  Penny,  about  a  week  later,  he  says  : — 


1857-59         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  22$ 

I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  so  promptly  interfering  to  prevent 
further  plunder.  I  am  also  delighted  to  hear  what  you  say  about  the 
want  of  truth  as  regards  the  murders  at  Meerut.  It  would,  indeed,  be 
sad  to  think  that  our  countrymen  had  killed  people  in  cold  blood,  of 
whose  guilt  or  innocence  they  had  no  cognizance. 

But,  finding  that  things  did  not  improve  as  fast  as  he  could  wish, 
he  set  out  for  Delhi  himself  as  soon  as  it  was  safe  to  leave  the  Pun- 
jab, with  the  express  purpose  of  putting  a  stop,  if  possible,  to  fur- 
ther bloodshed  and  spoliation.  He  left  Ferozepore  on  January  30, 
1858,  and,  after  passing  through  Loodiana  and  Umballa,  and  hold- 
ing interviews  with  his  lieutenants  and  with  the  protected  chiefs 
who  had  done  us  such  admirable  service,  reached  Delhi  on  Feb- 
ruary 24.  His  first  act  was  to  call  together  all  the  chief  ofificials  of 
the  place.  Charles  Saunders,  Philip  Egerton,  Neville  Chamberlain, 
and  others  were  present  at  the  meeting.  Sir  John  Lawrence  spoke 
temperately  regarding  the  proceedings  of  the  Special  Commission- 
ers ;  admitted  that,  at  first,  exceptional  circumstances  might  have 
justified  exceptional  measures  of  repression  ;  but  pointed  out  that, 
at  any  rate,  the  time  for  such  meastires  had  long  since  passed,  and 
that  what  was  wanted  now  was  to  restore  peace  and  confidence  to 
the  people.  At  the  same  time,  he  telegraphed  to  Lord  Canning, 
asking  for  leave  to  withdraw  at  once  the  power  of  life  and  death 
from  individuals  some  of  whom  had  so  terribly  abused  it,  and  to 
appoint  instead  a  mixed  Commission  of  civil  and  military  officers, 
who  were  to  try  cases  of  rebellion,  and  not  put  anyone  to  death 
without  the  sanction  of  Government.  '  I  have  arranged,'  he  says  in 
a  letter  to  Lord  Canning,  '  for  a  Commission  of  three  officers  for 
the  trial  of  insurgents  and  mutineers,  as  the  system  of  allowing 
every  judicial  officer  to  sentence  to  death  did  not  work  well.'  At 
the  same  time,  he  endeavoured  to  strike  at  the  root  of  the  mischief, 
by  getting  one  of  the  chief  offenders  removed  to  some  other  part  of 
the  country,  where  he  would  be  less  in  the  way  of  temptation. 

At  Delhi,  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  joined,  much  to  his  relief  of 
mind,  by  his  Secretary,  Richard  Temple,  who  had  been  absent  on 
furlough  throughout  the  crisis,  and,  on  landing  in  Calcutta  on  his 
return  from  England,  had  managed,  with  characteristc  energy,  to 
make  his  way  at  once  to  his  chief  across  a  country  which  was  still 
over-run  by  mutineers.  *  Little  Temple  has  arrived,'  says  Sir  John, 
'  looking  very  jolly,  and  talking  immensely.'  And  in  conversation 
with  myself,  some  twenty-three  years  later.  Sir  Richard  Temple 
has  fully  confirmed  the  impression  which  I  have  derived  from  the 
sum  total  of  the  correspondence  before  me,  and  from  the  narratives 
VOL.  II. — 15 


226  LIFE    OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

of  eye-witnesses,  as  to  the  deplorable  condition  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  city  full  five  months  after  it  had  fallen  into  our  hands. 
'  The  town,'  he  said,  '  was  perfectly  quiet  and  orderly.  There  was 
no  cause  for  alarm.  But  the  work  of  plunder  and  bloodshed  was 
still  going  on.  The  people  wore  a  hwtted  look,  and  were  still  being 
arrested  in  large  numbers,  and  many  of  them  hanged  or  put  in 
irons.'  Sir  John  Lawrence,  hoping  that  he  had  put  a  final  stop  to 
all  this,  left  Delhi  for  an  adjoining  district,  where  there  was  much 
to  be  done.  But  over-hearing  some  young  officers,  who  were  out 
shooting,  congratulating  each  other,  more  suo,  that  '  a  good  stifif 
rule '  was  still  going  on  in  the  city,  and  that  a  Goojur  prisoner, 
who  had  been  sentenced  to  death  before  his  arrival,  had  been  exe- 
cuted, inadvertently  or  not,  in  defiance  of  his  orders,  as  soon  as  his 
back  was  turned,  he  went  back  in  high  wrath  to  Delhi,  and  gave 
what  I  believe  to  have  been  the  severest  reprimand  ever  given  by 
him.  '  Write,' he  said  to  his  Secretary,  'a  severe  despatch,  con- 
demning what  has  been  done.'  Temple  did  as  he  was  told. 
'Write  it  much  more  strongly,'  said  Sir  John,  and  the  result,  prob- 
ably, gave  adequate  expression  to  his  feelings  on  the  subject.  In 
vain,  soon  afterwards,  as  the  Chief  Commissioner  and  his  Secretary 
were  driving  out  in  a  buggy,  did  the  Magistrate  of  the  city  ride  up 
to  him  and  press  strongly  that  some  of  the  expressions  might  be 
modified.  '  No,'  said  Sir  John,  '  there  is  not  a  word  of  it  I  will 
alter.     It  is  not  half  strong  enough.' 

The  reign  of  terror  was  now  over,  and  Sir  John  Lawrence,  after 
making  proper  arrangements  with  the  General  in  command  for  the 
protection  of  the  palace  and  the  bridge  of  boats,  for  the  levelling 
of  some  of  the  fortifications,  for  the  readmission  of  the  still  excluded 
Mohammedan  population,  and — more  important  still  —  for  their 
protection  when  they  should  have  been  readmitted,  left,  in  the  third 
week  of  March,  the  city  which  he  had  done  so  much  to  recapture 
and  so  much  to  save.  That  the  mosques  of  Delhi  were  not  dese- 
crated ;  that  the  inhabitants  were  not  left  to  shift  for  themselves  as 
homeless  outcasts  ;  that  the  whole  city,  with  its  glorious  buildings 
and  its  historic  memories,  was  not  levelled  with  the  ground,  and 
the  plough  driven  over  its  site  ;  in  one  word,  that  the  lasting  shame 
emblazoned  in  letters  of  blood  and  fire  in  the  annals  of  Imperial 
Rome,  by  her  ruthless  destruction  of  Carthage  and  of  Corinth,  is 
not  written  in  equally  indelible  characters  in  the  annals  of  English 
rule  in  India,  was  due,  in  great  part  at  least,  to  the  justice  and  the 
humanity,  the  statesmanship  and  the  Christian  spirit  of  John  Law- 
rence.    '  Should  not  I  spare  ? ' — so  in  words  of  high  and  sacred 


1857-59  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   A  CONQUEROR,  22/ 

precedent  he  might  have  met  the  fiery  spirits  who  surrounded  him, 
and  who  would  some  of  them  certainly  have  ranged  themselves  on 
the  side  of  the  angry  Hebrew  prophet  rather  than  of  the  repentant 
or  innocent  people.  '  Should  not  I  spare  Nineveh,  that  great  city, 
wherein  are  more  than  six  score  thousand  persons  who  cannot  dis- 
cern between  their  right  hand  and  their  left  hand,  and  also  much 
cattle  ? ' 

In  the  English,  as  in  all  Imperial  races,  there  is  an  element  of  the 
wild  beast.  There  is  a  disposition  which  has  shown  itself,  once  and 
again,  in  the  hour  of  provocation  or  of  panic  to  indulge  in  wild  re- 
prisals, or  even  in  deliberate  revenge  long  after  all  justification,  or 
even  excuse  for  it,  has  ceased.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  taken  as  a 
whole,  and  in  the  long  run,  the  English  are  neither  cruel  nor  revenge- 
ful. In  spite  of  all  our  shortcomings — and  to  these  no  one  who  has 
studied  the  history  of  the  rise  of  our  Indian  Empire  can  be  blind — 
there  is  no  Imperial  race  which  has,  on  the  whole,  been  more  keenly 
alive  to  its  Imperial  obligations  towards  the  races  whom  it  rules. 
Had  Delhi  been  destroyed — as  many  in  the  fury  of  the  hour  wished 
it  might — a  reaction  would  not  have  been  long  in  coming  ;  and  the 
instruments  and  the  interpreters  of  the  popular  passion  would,  in 
that  case,  have  been  the  first  to  suffer  by  it.  But  it  would  have 
been  too  late.  The  blot  upon  our  escutcheon  could  never  have 
been  wiped  out.  We  should  have  acted,  it  is  true,  only  as  succes- 
sive conquerors  of  India,  Turk  and  Tartar,  Afghan  and  Persian, 
have  acted  before  us.  We  should  have  added  only  one  more  to  the 
cities  of  the  dead  which  surround  the  city  of  the  living,  and  tell,  in 
their  eloquent  silence,  of  the  work  of  successive  destroyers.  But 
we  should  have  ranked  ourselves,  by  so  doing,  with  those  earlier  con- 
querors ;  not,  as  it  is  our  hope  that  we  have  some  right  to  do, 
above  them.  We  should  no  longer  have  been  able  to  boast  that  we 
have  conquered  India,  to  a  great  extent,  by  different  methods,  and 
held  it  for  different  objects  from  these  of  our  predecessors.  We 
should  have  been  unable  to  flatter  ourselves  that  our  practice 
and  our  aim  has  been  to  preserve,  to  humanise,  to  elevate,  not  to 
persecute,  to  pillage,  or  to  destroy.  All  honour,  then,  to  those  who, 
in  the  exasperating  conflict  of  the  Mutiny,  lost  neither  head  nor 
heart,  but  saved  us  from  our  baser  selves,  saved  us  from  the  brief 
delirium  of  a  revenge  which  must  have  been  succeeded  by  a  long 
and  unavailing  repentance  ! 

I  have  followed  in  some  detail  the  proceedings  at  Delhi  after  its 
recapture,  partly,  because  I  consider  that  they  form  one  of  the  most 
important  as  well  as  of  the  least  known  episodes  of  John  Lawrence's 


228  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

life,  and  reveal  to  us  his  truest  self,  and  partly,  because,  though  the 
facts  are  little  known,  and  some  of  them  are  painful  in  the  extreme, 
I  beiieve  that  such  a  narrative  is  fraught  with  lessons  of  the  first  im- 
portance for  the  present  and  for  the  future. 

It  will  readily  be  believed  that  the  humane  views  of  Sir  John 
Lawrence,  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  set  forth,  were  cordially 
shared  by  the  highest  authorities  in  India  and  in  England — in  India, 
by  Lord  Elphinstone  and  Lord  Canning  ;  in  England,  by  the  Queen 
herself.  But  it  may  be  well  to  quote  here,  as  the  most  authorita- 
tive condemnation  of  the  past,  and  as  an  omen  of  brighter  things  for 
the  future,  a  few  words  from  each. 

Lord  Elphinstone,  in  writing  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  on  November 
25,  says  :— 

I  have  heard  some  very  painful  accounts  of  the  doings  of  our  troops  at 
Delhi  since  the  place  has  been  taken.  Friend  and  foe  are  treated  alii<e. 
The  pillage  has  been  more  complete  than  even  that  of  Nadir  Shah.  It 
is  quite  right  that  our  murdered  countrymen  should  be  avenged,  but  I 
do  not  understand  why  the  innocent  and  often  friendly  inhabitants  are 
to  be  made  to  pay  for  the  guilty.  Surely  both  justice  and  good  policy 
require  that  a  stop  should  be  put  to  this. 

Lord  Canning,  in.  writing  to  the  Queen  on  September  25,  1857, 
says  : — 

There  is  a  rabid  and  indiscriminate  vindictiveness  abroad,  even 
amongst  many  who  ought  to  set  a  better  example,  which  it  is  impossible 
to  contemplate  without  a  feeling  of  shame  for  one's  countrymen.  Not 
one  man  in  ten  seems  to  think  that  the  hanging  and  shooting  of  forty  to 
fifty  thousand  mutineers,  besides  other  rebels,  can  be  otherwise  than 
practicable  and  right.  Nor  does  it  occur  to  those  who  talk  and  write 
most  upon  the  matter,  that  for  the  Sovereign  of  England  to  hold  and 
gove'rn  India  without  employing,  and,  to  a  great  extent,  trusting  natives 
both  in  civil  and  military  service,  is  simply  impossible.  .  .  .  To  those 
whose  hearts  have  been  torn  by  the  foul  barbarities  inflicted  on  those 
dear  to  them,  any  degree  of  bitterness  against  the  natives  may  be  ex- 
cused. No  man  will  dare  to  judge  them  for  it.  But  the  cry  is  raised 
loudest  by  those  who  have  been  sitting  quietly  in  their  houses  from  the 
beginning  and  have  suffered  little  from  the  convulsions  around  them,  un- 
less it  be  in  pocket.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  feeling  of  exasperation 
will  be  a  great  impediment  in  the  way  of  restoring  tranquillity  and  good 
order,  even  after  signal  retribution  shall  have  been  deliberately  measured 
out  to  all  the  chief  offenders. 

Such  words,  uttered  by  one  who  had  so  worthily  represented  the 
Queen  throughout,  were  sure  to  obtain  a  warm  response  from  her. 


i8S7-59         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  229 

Lord  Cannintj  (she  writes)  will  easily  believe  how  entirely  the  Queen 
shares  his  feelings  of  sorrow  and  indignation  at  the  un-Christian  spirit 
shown,  alas,  also,  to  a  great  extent,  here  by  the  public  towards  India  in 
general,  and  towards  Sepoys  without  discrimination.  It  is,  however,  not 
likely  to  last.  ...  To  the  nation  at  large,  to  the  peaceable  inhabitants, 
to  the  many  kind  and  friendly  natives  who  have  assisted  us,  sheltered 
the  fugitives,  and  been  faithful  and  true,  there  should  be  shown  the 
greatest  kindness.  They  should  know  that  there  is  no  hatred  to  a  brown 
skin,  none  ;  but  the  greatest  wish  on  the  Queen's  part  to  see  them  happy, 
contented,  and  flourishing.^ 

The  life  of  Lord  Canning,  from  whatever  causes,  has  never  been, 
and  now,  probably,  never  will  be  written.  I  am  all  the  more  anx- 
ious, therefore,  to  tell  here  an  anecdote  which,  otherwise,  will  be 
lost  to  the  world,  but  which  ought  to  be  told  of  him  wherever  his 
noble  name  is  known.  It  will  illustrate  at  once  his  noble  character 
and  the  painful  details  connected  with  the  suppression  of  the  Mu- 
tiny which  it  is  impossible  for  this  biography,  if  it  is  to  be,  in  any 
true  sense,  a  picture  of  the  time,  and  of  the  man,  altogether  to  pass 
over.  I  owe  the  story  to  Sir  Frederick  Halliday,  who,  as  Lieuten- 
ant-Governor of  Bengal  was  brought  into  the  most  intimate  re- 
lations with  Lord  Canning. 

You  know  (he  says),  that  on  the  6th  of  June,  1857,  an  Act  was  passed 
by  the  Indian  Legislature,  making  it  a  capital  offence  to  tamper  with  the 
allegiance  of  our  troops,  and  so  forth  ;  the  sentence  to  be  carried  into 
immediate  effect  by  the  senior  officer  on  the  spot,  and  the  trials  to  be 
either  before  a  Court-Martial  or  before  a  Commissioner  or  Commis- 
sioners appointed  by  the  Local  Government. 

Lord  Canning  found  it  necessary  to  interfere  with  the  doings  of  some 
of  these  tribunals  (not  Courts-Martial,  I  believe),  not  very  long  after 
they  had  come  into  operation,  and  the  consequence  was  a  flood  of  bitter 
abuse,  which  reverberated  from  England,  where  the  limes  called  him 
'Clemency  Canning.' 

No  one  can  imagine  how  bitter  and  savage  was  the  feeling  towards 
Lord  Canning,  caused  by  his  action  in  this  matter. 

I  heard  an  educated  gentleman  say,  with  the  deepest  earnestness  and 
apparent  sincerity,  that  he  should  delight  in  firing  a  pistol  at  Lord  Can- 
ning's head,  and  would  consider  it  a  highly  patriotic  and  meritorious 
act. 

I  was  talking  to  Lord  Canning  one  day  about  this,  and  he  did  not  con- 
ceal from  me  that  he  was  painfully  affected  by  the  sentiments  of  hatred 
and  contempt  which  he  was  aware  his  measures  had  excited  towards 
himself. 

'  But  read,'  he  said,  'these  papers,'  which  he  took  out  of  his  table 

'  Life  of  the  Ftiiice  Consort,  vol.  iv.  pp.  46-147. 


230  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

drawer.  They  were  the  result  of  careful  inquiries  he  had  caused  to  be 
made  into  the  working  of  some  of  these  courts  since  they  had  been  in 
operation,  and  they  disclosed  a  series  of  acts  of  tyranny,  cruelty,  and  in- 
justice of  the  most  brutal  and  horrible  nature.  In  fact,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  mere  panic,  these  courts  had  disgraced  themselves  by  what  could 
be  called  by  no  other  name  than  indiscriminate  judicial  murders.'  And 
of  this,  the  papers  he  gave  me  furnished  ample  proof. 

I  expressed,  as  you  may  suppose,  my  horror  at  these  cruelties  ;  but  I 
also  said  that,  having  such  justification  in  his  hands  of  his  recent  pro- 
ceedings, I  hoped  he  would  publish  it  as  his  complete  defence  against 
his  calumniators. 

'  No  !  '  he  replied,  as  he  took  the  papers  from  my  hand,  and  locked 
them  up  in  his  drawer  ;  '  I  had  rather  submit  to  any  obloquy  than  pub- 
lish to  the  world  what  would  so  terribly  disgrace  my  countrymen.  It  is 
sufficient  that  I  have  prevented  it  for  the  future.' 

Lord  Canning,  as  the  next  chapter  will  show,  was  unfortunately 
too  sanguine  in  supposing  that  he  had  altogether  prevented  such 
things  for  the  future.  The  snake  had  been  scotched  only,  not 
killed.  But  nothing  can  detract  from  the  unsullied  nobility  of  the 
man  who  under  his  circumstances  could  speak  and  act  as  he  spoke 
and  acted. 

In  the  midst  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  anxieties  on  this  and  other 
subjects,  there  had  been  one  brief  interlude  of  family  life  and  en- 
joyment, which  must  not  be  altogether  omitted  from  my  narrative. 
His  intimate  friends  knew  well  how  much  his  anxiety  had  been 
increased  during  the  early  part  of  the  Mutiny  by  his  separation 
from  his  wife.  Doubtless,  he  might  have  summoned  her  to  his  side 
at  any  moment  in  case  of  necessity,  and  there  was  consolation  to 
each  in  the  thought.  But  there  were  many  other  English  ladies 
living  at  Murri  certainly  in  greater  comfort,  and,  possibly,  in  greater 
safety  than  could  have  been  the  case  if  they  were  living  in  the 
plains  ;  and  the  Chief  Commissioner,  feeling  that  '  nobility  imposes 
obligation,'  determined  not  to  set  an  example  which  might  be  imi- 

'  Compare,  as  an  illustration  of  Sir  Frederick  Halliday's  statements,  the  fol- 
lowing extract  from  Meadows  Taylor's  History  of  India  :  '  Much  retributive 
justice  had  been  dealt  out  to  prominent  rebels.  But  the  cry  for  more  revenge — 
more  blood — raged  furiously.  Lord  Canning  was  assailed  in  England  and  In- 
dia by  a  hurricane  of  abuse.  While  at  the  outset  he  endowed  every  person  in 
authority  with  extra  powers,  he  found,  as  the  circle  of  rebellion  and  resistance 
narrowed,  and  as  an  almost  indiscriminate  slaughter  was  carried  on,  that  restraint 
was  needed,  and  he  resolutely  imposed  it  by  his  order  on  July  31.  Real  crimi- 
nals were  not  the  less  brought  to  justice,  but  the  burning  of  suspected  villages 
and  indiscriminate  slaughter  of  the  people  were  checked  in  time.' 


1857-59        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  23 1 

tated  by  others  and  might  even  cause  a  panic  similar  to  that  ^vhich 
had  taken  place  at  Simla,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Mutiny. 

But  now  the  extremity  of  the  danger  was  over,  and  the  cool  sea- 
son had  come.  So,  on  November  4,  he  started  to  meet  his  wife  at 
Jhelum,  in  her  descent  through  the  plains  ;  and  once  more,  on 
November  9,  I  recognise  in  the  folio  volumes  of  letters  the  familiar 
handwriting,  which  had  seldom  long  been  absent  from  them  till 
the  Mutiny  broke  out.  But  the  interval  of  domestic  happiness  was 
all  too  short.  '  Harrie  and  the  babes,'  says  Sir  John  Lawrence  to 
his  brother  George,  who,  as  Resident  in  Rajpootana,  was  weathering 
the  storm  with  his  wonted  courage  and  resolution,  '  are  to  leave 
Mooltan  by  a  steamer  on  December  26.  I  shall  go  sO  far  with  her. 
I  had  intended  going  home  in  April,  for  a  year,  on  sick  certificate, 
as  my  eyes  are  ailing  and  require  rest  and  advice  ;  but  this  is  now 
out  of  the  question.  I  feel  bound  to  stay  for  another  year  until  all 
be  restored  to  order.' 

My  husband  (says  Lady  Lawrence),  looked  very  ill  and  worn  after  the 
long  strain  of  anxiety.  But  his  work  never  relaxed,  nor  did  he  give 
himself  any  rest.  My  health  was  also  bad,  and  feeling  that  matters 
were  still  so  unsettled  in  India,  he  told  me  that  he  would  feel  relieved  if 
he  knew  that  I  were  safe  at  home,  in  England.  This  was  a  most  terri- 
ble trial  to  us  both,  but  I  knew  that  he  was  right,  and  that  it  would  only 
worry  him,  if  I  did  not  agree  to  the  plan.  Moreover,  as  he  reminded 
me,  he  would  have  to  move  about  a  great  deal,  and  as  I  could  not  be 
with  him,  it  was  better  for  me  to  go  to  our  children.  Nearly  eight 
years  had  passed  since  our  little  girls  had  left  us,  and  it  was  indeed  time 
that  they  should,  if  possible,  begin  to  know  their  parents.  So  we  started 
on  December  15  for  Mooltan.  It  was  sad  work,  and  I  hoped,  as  each 
day  passed,  that  something  might  occur  to  save  me  from  the  separation. 
When  the  last  morning — January  6 — arrived,  we  had  our  usual  Bible 
reading,  and  I  never  can  read  the  27th  Psalm,  which  was  the  portion  we 
then  read  together,  without  recalling  that  sad  time.  I  was  weak  and 
foolish  enough,  even  then,  to  beg  my  husband  to  let  me  stay,  and  so 
made  the  parting  harder  for  him.  But  that  could  not  be.  So,  with  a 
sad  and  almost  broken  heart,  I  went  on  board  the  little  steamer  which 
was  to  take  the  passengers  down  the  river  to  Kurrachi.  He  came  down 
with  me  to  the  steamer  and  made  every  possible  arrangement  for  our 
comfort;  and  now,  as  I  write,  I  can  almost  see  his  figure  as  he  rode 
along  the  bank  of  the  river,  first  keeping  up  with  the  steamer,  and  then 
watching  it  as  long  as  he  could. 

At  Kurrachi,  Lady  Lawrence  was  hospitably  entertained  in  the 
house  of  Bartle  Frerc,  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  Scinde,  who  had 


232  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-59 

been  working  so  cordially  with  her  husband  for  the  common  cause  ; 
while  Sir  John  Lawrence,  broken  down  in  health  as  he  was,  and 
yearning  for  repose  as  he  had  been  for  two  years  past,  returned  to 
Lahore,  determined  not  to  leave  his  province  till  he  had  done  all 
that  he  could,  not  only  to  put  everything  into  perfect  order  within 
it,  but  to  reinforce  the  new  Commander-in-Chief  for  the  great  cam- 
paign which  was  about  to  open  in  the  North-West. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

JOHN  LAWRENCE  AS  A  PACIFICATOR. 

September  1857 — July  1858. 

When  the  news  of  the  death  of  General  Anson  and  of  the  rapid 
spread  of  the  Mutiny  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Bengal  army 
reached  England  early  in  July,  the  Ministers  who,  up  to  that  time 
had  been  inclined  to  doubt  the  extent  and  the  extremity  of  the 
peril,  woke  up,  partially,  at  least,  to  its  reality.  The  Queen  and 
Prince  Albert,  as  is  now  well  known,  had  taken  a  truer  view  from 
the  beginning,  and  had  not  failed  to  urge  it  upon  the  Government 
in  a  series  of  admirable  and  stirring  communications.^  Much 
larger  reinforcements  were  hurried  out  with  all  speed,  and  Sir  Colin 
Campbell  was  offered  the  chief  command  of  the  Indian  Army. 
*  When  will  you  be  ready  to  start  ? '  said  Lord  Palmerston  as  he 
made  the  offer.  '  To-morrow,'  replied  the  fine  old  soldier,  and 
on  the  morrow,  July  12,  he  was  actually  off,  saying  that  he  would 
get  his  outfit  in  Calcutta. 

The  appointment  of  Sir  Colin  brought  Sir  John  Lawrence,  in 
spite  of  all  intervening  obstacles,  into  close  communication  with 
Head-Quarters.  The  two  men  were  old  and  tried  friends,  and  the 
troops,  the  arms  and  the  counsel  with  which  the  Chief  Commis- 
sioner of  the  Punjab  had  so  unstintingly  supplied  successive  com- 
manders of  the  Delhi  field  force,  were  now  to  be  as  freely  sought 
by  Sir  Colin  Campbell  as  they  were  to  be  freely  given  by  Sir  John 
Lawrence,  towards  the  completion  of  the  great  works  that  were  in 
hand ;  the  reUef  of  Lucknow,  the  reconquest  of  Oude,  of  Rohil- 
kund  and  of  the  Gangetic  Doab,  and,  more  important  still,  the  ulti- 
mate reconstruction  of  the  Bengal  army  and  the  reorganisation  of 
the  whole  system  of  the  government  of  India. 

These  were  some  of  the  objects  to  which,  over  and  above  the 
safety  of  his  own  province.  Sir  John  Lawrence  addressed  himself 

'  Life  of  the  Prince  Consort,  vol.  iv.  pp.  73-74  ;  77-82  ;  83  ;  90-92  ;  124- 
12S,  etc. 

233 


234  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

during  the  next  eighteen  months,  the  last  before  his  return  to  Eng- 
land, and  I  propose,  in  this  chapter,  to  allow  him  to  speak  as  much 
as  possible  for  himself,  to  describe  his  own  work  and  plans,  his 
hopes  and  his  fears.  With  this  view,  I  shall  quote,  as  freely  as  my 
limits  permit,  and  with  as  little  explanation  or  comment  as  is  con- 
sistent with  clearness,  from  the  remarkable  series  of  letters  which 
he  wrote  to  Lord  Canning,  to  Sir  Colin  Campbell,  and  to  General 
Mansfield  in  India ;  to  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  who  had  been  one 
of  his  earliest  friends,  and  was  now  Secretary  to  the  Treasury  in 
England  ;  to  Mr.  Mangles,  the  Chairman  of  the  Court  of  Directors, 
and  to  Lord  Stanley,  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Control.  Sir 
John  Lawrence  evidently  felt  great  doubts  whether  he  would  ever 
return  to  India,  and  we  may  observe  in  some  of  his  letters  not  a 
little  of  the  solemnity,  the  earnestness,  the  insight, — the  vox  cygnea, 
in  short, — of  a  departing  seer. 

The  first  letter  which  he  received  from  the  new  Commander-in- 
Chief  showed  how  warmly  any  advice  or  assistance  which  he  could 
give  would  be  welcomed. 

Independently  (says  Sir  Colin  Campbell)  of  our  long-established  ac- 
quaintance, which  would  make  me  desirous  of  keeping  you  well  informed 
of  what  arrangements  it  may  be  in  my  power  to  make  at  this  crisis,  I 
am  sure,  my  dear  Lawrence,  you  will  be  of  the  same  opinion,  and  it 
would  be  a  matter  of  real  gratification  to  me  if  we  exchange  our  ideas 
and  plans  from  time  to  time.  On  my  arrival  here  I  found  officers  of 
every  rank  anxious  to  be  at  least  Divisional  commanders  and  at  the  head 
of  small  Columns,  independent  of  all  control.  .  .  .  After  great  exertions 
I  have  succeeded  in  reinforcing  Havelock,  so  as  to  make  his  force  up  to 
three  thousand  men  and  upwards  by  the  15th  instant.  Sir  James  Outram 
accompanies  him  in  his  capacity  as  civil  Commissioner,  leaving  to  his 
friend  all  the  glory  of  relieving  our  friends  at  Lucknow.  ...  I  have 
looked  with  an  anxious  eye  to  the  Punjab  since  the  troubles  began,  and 
I  can  only  be  thankful  that  Government  was  lucky  enough  to  have  you 
in  that  country  to  meet  the  storm. 

Sir  Colin  Campbell  had  made  only  one  request  of  Government 
when  he  accepted  his  new  command.  It  was  that  General  Mansfield, 
who  had  served  under  him,  with  the  highest  credit,  in  previous 
campaigns  in  India,  might  be  recalled  from  Warsaw,  where  he  was 
rendering  service  to  his  country  of  a  notable  but  a  very  different 
kind,  in  order  that  he  might  act  as  Chief  of  his  Staff.  Of  course 
the  prayer  was  granted,  and  as  Sir  W.  Mansfield  is  to  be  brought 
into  very  close  contact,  during  much  of  the  remainder  of  his  life, 
with  the  subject  of  this  biography,  I  may  quote  here  his  opinion  of 


1857-58         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  235 

the  services,  military  and  civil,  which  had  already  been  rendered  by 

Sir  John  Lawrence. 

Camp,  near  Futtehguhr :  January  i,  1858. 
How  I  wish  (he  says  in  writing  to  Sir  John)  that  your  master  hand 
was  at  work  in  these  parts.  Believe  me  it  is  even  more  wanted  than  in 
the  Punjab  when  you  first  annexed  it.  I  tell  you,  most  privately  and 
confidentially,  that,  in  my  opinion,  the  men  charged  with  this  business 
here  are  not  up  to  the  mark.  I  do  not  think  the  occasion  understood  by 
them,  and  I  doubt  very  much  if  the  folks  in  Calcutta  can  bring  them- 
selves to  understand  the  real  state  of  things.  .  .  .  Pray  accept  my  hearty 
congratulations  on  all  you  have  been  able  to  effect  during  the  tremendous 
trial  to  which  you  have  been  exposed.  Your  page  of  history  will  be  a 
bright  one. 

Some  extracts  from  Sir  John  Lawrence's  first  letter  to  Sir  Colin, 
written  on  October  15, — shortly,  that  is,  after  the  fall  of  Delhi, — 
will  give  his  general  view  of  the  situation  and  its  requirements. 

We  have  indeed  had  a  terrible  storm,  and  it  is,  I  am  persuaded,  only 
by  the  mercy  of  God  that  a  single  European  is  alive  on  this  side  of  India. 
At  one  time  I  began  to  think  that  all  must  be  lost.  We  have  now,  so 
far  as  I  can  judge,  weathered  the  gale.  But  until  the  troops  arrive  from 
England  our  position  must  continue  to  be  precarious. 

Your  return  (of  troops)  shows  great  weakness,  but,  by  this  time,  I 
anticipate  that  the  remainder  of  the  China  force  will  have  arrived,  and 
henceforward  troops  will  probably  be  arriving  weekly.  Delhi  and 
Lucknow  having  fallen,  all  will  go  smoothly  with  common  -prudence. 
The  mutineers,  deprived  of  their  guns  and  materiel,  and  with  no  supplies 
of  ammunition  and  money,  will  gradually  melt  away.  Already  the 
political  horizon  is  clearing,  and  my  chief  anxiety  now  is  for  the  frontier, 
where  we  are  very  weak,  owing  to  so  many  of  our  old  Punjab  regiments 
being  away  and  the  European  regiments  being  so  sickly.  .  .  .  The  most 
pressing  subject  at  present  with  us  is  the  disposal  of  the  Hindustani 
troops.  When  the  reinforcements  from  England  arrive  some  might  be 
entrusted  with  their  arms.  But  the  majority  are,  to  my  mind,  utterly 
useless  and  dangerous.  For  the  last  three  months  they  have  only  been 
kept  from  joining  the  mutineers  at  Delhi  by  sheer  force.  We  have  had 
the  rivers  guarded  and  the  guns  planted,  with  the  disaffected  men 
encamped  on  the  plain,  where  all  they  might  do  could  be  seen.  Even 
the  best  regiments  among  the  Hindustanis  require  weeding. 

In  the  North-West  all  in  progressing  as  favourably  as  we  could  hope  for. 
An  Irregular  force  from  this  recovered  Sirsa,  Hansi,  and  Rohtuck.  All 
the  rest  of  the  country  round  Delhi  has  been  cleared  by  the  Movable  Col- 
umn. The  upper  portion  of  the  Gangetic  Doab — that  is  Saharunpore,  Mee- 
rut,  Muzuffurnuggur,  Bulundshuhur — down  to  below  Alighur,  seems  also 
safe.  The  insurgents  and  fanatics  all  disperse  and  disappear  as  the  mutineer 
soldiery  are  driven  away.     This  morning  we  heard  of  Colonel  Greathed's 


230  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

success  before  Agra.  This  will  keep  Gwalior  quiet,  from  which  quarter 
great  danger  was  to  be  apprehended.  I  think  that  Furruckabad  will 
soon  be  cleared  of  insurgents.  There  will  then  only  remain,  in  the 
upper  provinces,  Gwalior,  Rohilkund,  and  Oude.  Gwalior  may,  I  think, 
lie  over  for  a  time.  So  long  as  the  Movable  Column  does  not  lea\-e  the 
Doab,  or  go  below  Mynpoorie,  I  should  say  that  the  Gwalior  troops  will 
not  cross  the  Chumbul.  If  they  do,  that  Column,  reinforced  by  the  3rd 
Europeans  in  Agra,  should  be  able  to  settle  them.  Rohilkund,  I  think, 
may  also  lie  over  for  a  time  ;  and  as  to  Oude,  you  will  know  much  more 
about  it  than  I  can  tell  you.  I  only  know  that  Havelock  has  done  nobly. 
In  fact,  he  and  his  troops  have  exceeded  all  our  hopes  and  expectations. 
I  was  rejoiced  to  see  that  Outram  did  not  supersede  Havelock. 

With  a  couple  of  fresh  European  regiments  at  Peshawur,  and  an 
equal  number  above  Cawnpore  to  help  Greathed's  force,  which  is 
numerically  small  and  a  good  deal  worn,  I  think  all  would  be  pretty 
snug.  .   .   . 

I  am  anxious,  directly  that  matters  admit  of  it,  to  see  a  Commission  of 
able  officers  assemble  with  the  view  of  concocting  some  good  scheme 
for  a  new  native  army  for  Bengal.  Unless  this  be  done,  we  shall  only 
glide  back  into  the  old  rotten  system  ;  perhaps  into  something  even 
more  dangerous.  It  strikes  me  that  there  is  some  danger  that  our 
officers,  in  their  horror  of  John  Pandy,  may  go  into  the  other  extreme 
and  make  too  much  of  John  Sing.  We  can  no  more  rest  our  trust  on 
the  Punjabi  than  on  the  Hindustani.  We  cannot  do  without  a  native 
army,  but  our  aim  should  be  not  to  have  it  in  the  least  degree  larger 
than  is  absolutely  necessary.  And,  above  all,  our  European  force  should 
be  so  large,  and  so  well  placed  and  commanded,  as  to  render  resistance 
hopeless. 

From  the  moment  that  Delhi  fell,  Lucknow  took  its  place,  as  the 
Head-quarters  of  the  Mutiny,  as  the  centre  of  interest,  to  which  all 
eyes  were,  for  many  months  to  come,  to  turn  with  so  much  anxiety 
and  so  much  pride.  And  it  will  be  necessary,  if  we  are  to  under- 
stand the  policy  recommended  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  with  respect 
to  it,  to  glance,  very  briefly,  at  the  vicissitudes  of  the  siege,  its  suc- 
cessive reliefs  and  beleaguerments.  The  '  relief  of  the  Residency  ' 
on  September  25,  1857,  was  the  last  and  the  most  splendid  of  the 
long  series  of  successes  won  by  Havelock,  and  it  will  also  be  for 
ever  memorable  for  the  noble  self-abnegation  of  Sir  James  Outram. 
But,  in  reality,  it  was  no  *  relief '  at  all.  The  small  garrison  of  927 
Europeans  and  765  natives  had,  each  one  of  them, — as  though  they 
were  all  inspired  by  the  last  words  of  their  beloved  chief,  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence, — '  tried  to  do  his  duty,'  during  a  siege  of  twelve  weeks, 
exposed  to  sufferings  of  which,  as  Tennyson  has  truly  told  us  in  his 
stirring  ballad,  the  hard  fighting  was  the  least. 


1857-58        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  237 

Men  will  forget  what  we  suffer  and  not  what  we  do.     We  can  fight. 
But  to  be  soldier  all  day  and  be  sentinel  all  through  the  night — 
Ever  the  mine  and  assault,  our  sallies,  their  lying  alarms, 
Bugles  and  drums  in  the  darl<ness,   and  shoutings  and  soundings   to 

arms, 
Ever  the  labour  of  fifty  that  had  to  be  done  by  five. 
Ever  the  marvel  among  us  that  one  should  be  left  alive, 
Ever  the  day  with  its  traitorous  death  from  the  loopholes  around, 
Ever  the  night  with  its  coffinless  corpse  to  be  laid  in  the  ground, 
Heat  like  the  mouth  of  a  hell,  or  a  deluge  of  cataract  skies, 
Stench  of  old  offal  decaying  and  infinite  torment  of  flies. 
Thoughts  of  the  breezes  of  May  blowing  over  an  English  field, 
Cholera,  scurvy,  and  fever,  the  wound  that  would  not  be  healed. 
Lopping  away  of  the  limb  by  the  pitiful-pitiless  knife — 
Torture  and  trouble  in  vain — for  it  never  could  save  us  a  life. 
Valour  of  delicate  women  who  tended  the  hospital  bed, 
Horror  of  women  in  travail  among  the  dying  and  dead, 
Grief  for  our  perishing  children,  and  never  a  moment  for  grief, 
Toil  and  ineffable  weariness,  faltering  hopes  of  relief, 
Havelock  baffled,  or  beaten,  or  butchered  for  all  that  we  knew. 
Then  day  and  night,  day  and  night,  coming  down  on  the  still  shatter'd 

walls, 
Millions  of  musket  bullets,  and  thousands  of  cannon  balls. 
But  ever  upon  the  topmost  roof  our  banner  of  England  blew. 

But  now  Havelock  and  Outram  had  come  at  last ;  and  the  garrison 
straightway  found  themselves — Havelock  and  Outram  and  all — 
hemmed  in  as  closely  as  ever  by  the  vastly  superior  numbers  of  the 
enemy  and  by  the  seething  population  of  the  city.  The  garrison 
was,  in  fact,  reinforced  rather  than  relieved.  They  had  double  the 
ntimber  of  mouths  to  feed  and  no  more  food  with  which  to  do  it. 

At  last  Sir  Colin  Campbell  was  able  to  start  from  Calcutta,  and 
arriving  at  Cawnpore  on  November  4,  he  put  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  miscellaneous  force  of  four  thousand  men  which  he  had  man- 
aged, by  immense  exertions,  to  collect,  and,  a  few  days  afterwards, 
was  off  again  for  Lucknow,  fought  his  way  against  desperate  odds  ; 
and  on  the  17th,  the  four  generals — Inglis,  Havelock,  Outram,  and 
Colin  Campbell — had  their  famous  meeting,  immortalised  by 
painter  and  poet,  in  the  long  beleaguered  Residency.  The  siege 
was  at  last  over  ;  and  the  civilians,  women  and  children — such  of 
them  as  survived, — were  carried  off  in  safety  to  Cawnpore,  and 
thence  despatched  to  Allahabad. 

Thus  a  second  great  episode  in  the  Mutiny  had,  to  all  appearance, 
ended  in  our  favour.  But  it  was  still  in  appearance  only.  For  Sir 
Colin  Campbell  unable,  as  he  believed,  with  his  small  and  much 


238  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

diminished  force,  to  conquer  or  keep  the  vast  city,  determined  to 
abandon  the  Residency,  and  leaving  Outram  and  Havelock  to  hold 
the  Alum  Bagh,  to  fall  back  himself  upon  Cawnpore.  But  Have- 
lock's  last  victory  had  been  won.  He  was  on  his  death-bed,  dying 
of  dysentery,  and  Lucknow  is  thus  the  resting-place  of  two  of  the 
foremost  heroes  of  the  Mutiny.  The  Alum  Bagh  contains  the  grave 
of  the  stern  Puritan  soldier,  Sir  Henry  Havelock.  The  Residency 
will  remain  an  object  of  almost  religious  veneration  so  long  as  Eng- 
lish rule  in  India  lasts,  partly  because  of  the  heroic  memories  of  the 
siege  which  cluster  so  thickly  around  it,  but  still  more,  because  it 
contains  the  grave  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence. 

The  withdrawal  of  Sir  Colin  Campbell  from  Lucknow  was  a  con- 
fession of  weakness  ;  but  it  was  a  confession  of  weakness  made  by 
a  good  soldier  and  a  prudent  man.  The  disasters  which,  in  his 
absence,  had  befallen  Wyndham  at  Cawnpore  he  instantly  retrieved. 
He  recovered  Futtehguhr  and  Furruckabad,  and,  with  hardly  any 
loss  to  his  force,  defeated  the  enemy  in  several  engagements.  '  The 
news  of  the  day  '  (December  21),  says  John  Lawrence,  writing  in 
excellent  spirits,  which  were  not  usual  with  him  at  this  period,  '  is 
the  best  that  we  have  received  since  the  fall  of  Delhi.  We  have 
now  beaten  and  dispersed  the  last  body  of  the  mutineers  which  had 
not  yet  met  us,  and  have  taken  forty-eight  guns,  that  is  thirty-seven 
at  Cawnpore  and  its  vicinity,  and  eleven  near  Futtehguhr  ;  and  all 
this,  with  scarce  any  loss  to  ourselves  !  ' 

On  the  fourteenth  of  that  same  December,  a  pressing  appeal  for 
Cavalry,  written  in  Greek  characters,  the  most  common  form  of 
cypher  despatch  in  those  days,  had  reached  Sir  John  Lawrence 
from  General  Mansfield.     And  this  is  how  he  answered  it  : 

Camp,  Mooltan  Road  :  December  16,  1857. 
My  dear  Mansfield, — I  received  your  letter  calling  for  Cavalry  two 
days  ago,  just  as  I  was  starting  for  Mooltan.  I  have  arranged  with 
General  Penny  to  send  down  the  Head-quarters  of  the  ist  Sikh  Cavalry 
from  Delhi,  about  four  hundred  and  thirty  sabres.  I  will  do  all  I  can  to 
supply  their  place  at  once,  and  have  ordered  off  two  troops  of  anew 
corps  now  being  raised  at  Lahore.  I  hope  also  to  complete  this  corps 
within  another  month,  or  nearly  so.  The  remainder  of  the  ist  Sil<h  Cav- 
alry must,  by  this  time,  be  near  Kurnal,  and  should  follow  the  rest  of  the 
corps  down  the  country.  This  will  give  you  a  hundred  and  thirty  sabres 
more.  The  Lahore  Light  Horse  (Eurasians)  have  been  ordered  off  also. 
The  Guides  are  now  on  their  way  up  to  Peshawur,  and  must  be  near 
Umballa.  I  have  requested  the  commanding  officer  to  send  on  the  Cav- 
alry by  forced  marches.  On  their  arrival  at  Peshawur  I  shall  be  able  to 
send  down  two  squadrons  of  the  2nd  Punjab  Cavalry,  Sikhs  and  Pathans, 


1857-58        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  239 

many  of  whom  are  old  soldiers.  I  hope,  within  a  month,  to  have  started 
from  Lahore  a  thousand  Sowars,  so  as  to  make  up  the  Cavalry  reinforce- 
ments to  sixteen  hundred  sabres.  Let  me  know  if  this  will  suffice,  or 
whether  more  will  be  required.  As  each  party  starts.  Colonel  Macpher- 
son  will  send  you  notice.  Th'ey  ought,  however,  to  be  in  your  neighbour- 
hood about  the  following-  dates  : — 


ist  Sikh  Cavalry 
Lahore  Horse     .... 
Punjabi  troop  of  17th  Irregulars 
2  squadrons  of  2nd  P.  C.    . 
iPathan  horse  of  all  sorts     . 


570  sabres,  1 5th  Feb. 

120      "  ist  March 

80      "  15th  March 

160      "  1st  April 

660      "  1st  April 


1,590 


You  may  depend  on  my  doing  all  I  can  to  send  them  down  as  quickly  as 
possible.  You  might  give  orders  for  them  to  make  play  and  not  delay 
on  the  road.  All  will  go  straight  to  Meerut.  I  want  to  know  if  you  will 
require  any  of  the  three  regiments  of  European  Infantry  now  bound  to 
the  Punjab  viii  Kurrachi.  I  will  gladly  keep  them,  for  we  require  them. 
Still,  if  necessary,  we  could  spare  one.  I  want  also  to  know  if  you 
require  Artillery.  We  can  easily  give  you  one  battery  or  troop,  and,  at 
a  pinch,  two  ;  though  General  Gowan  is  much  averse  to  it.  Still  he  has 
agreed.  We  expect  also  to  be  able  to  give  you  two  regiments  more  of 
Punjab  Infantry — one  new,  the  other  old — directly  the  Guides  reach 
Peshawur — say  about  February  20.  And  when  Scinde  sends  us  a  Be- 
luch  or  Bombay  regiment  of  Infantry,  we  will  make  shift  to  send  a  third 
regiment  of  Infantry  down.  I  can  raise  more  Cavalry,  but  it  takes  time, 
and  they  are  not  very  good  thus  hastily  raised. 

We  trust  that  the  news  of  your  success  at  Cawnpore  is  correct.  We 
are  all  well  in  the  Punjab.  What  is  to  be  done  with  all  the  Pandies  we 
have  here  ?  They  are  sadly  iu  the  way.  But  what  can  be  done  with 
them  ? 

A  letter  like  this  must  have  shown  Sir  Cohn,  with  his  small  force, 
on  what  a  vast  reserve  of  strength  he  had  to  fall  back  in  the  person 
of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  a  reserve  which  was  likely  to  prove  equal  to 
all  emergencies.  *  The  promise  of  so  much  Cavalry,'  said  his 
Chief-of-the-Staff,  General  Mansfield,  in  a  burst  of  gratitude,  '  is 
indeed  a  grateful  one.  It  was  among  the  numerous  urgent  wants 
which  were  most  urgently  pressing  upon  us.  The  transient  successes 
of  Infantry  are,  in  the  long  run,  quite  unavailing,  unless  it  is  possi- 
ble to  follow  them  up  with  a  cloud  of  horsemen.' 

That  Sir  John  Lawrence's  performance  was  eqtral  to  his  promise 
need  hardly  be  said.  He  was  even  better  than  his  word.  By  the 
middle  of  February  he  had  sent  down  not  merely  1,600  but  more 


240  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

than  3, coo  Cavalry  drawn  from  all  quarters,  three  regiments  of 
Punjab  Infantry,  one  of  English  Infantry,  and  twelve  guns  !  Nor 
was  he  willing  to  give  material  aid  alone  at  such  a  crisis.  The  Com- 
mander-in-Chief was,  just  then,  preparing  for  his  final  advance  on 
Lucknow,  which  was  to  be  followed  up  by  the  reconquest  of  Oude 
and  Rohilkund.  Was  the  war  to  continue  to  be  one  of  simple  ex- 
termination, or  was  it  not  right, — now  that  the  balance  had  declared 
itself  in  our  favour — to  hold  out  the  olive  branch  to  the  less  guilty 
among  the  soldiers  and  peoples  who  were  still  in  arms  against  us  ? 
This  was  the  question  which  occupied  some  of  John  Lawrence's 
most  anxious  thoughts  for  months  to  come.  He  lost  no  oppor- 
tunity of  urging  his  views  on  all  who  had  any  influence  in  the  mat- 
ter ;  and  that  he  and  those  who  agreed  with  him  were  right,  will 
probably  be  the  opinion  of  those  who  glance  at  his  arguments  and 
recollect  the  prolonged  struggle  and  the  loss  of  life,  native  as  well 
as  European,  which  was  the  result  of  the  contrary  policy. 

I  had  no  idea  (he  writes  to  Mansfield)  that  Sir  Colin's  force  was  so 
small  as  you  describe.  As  the  hot  weather  approaches  we  must  expect 
great  sickness.  The  more  we  can  do  before  April  i,  the  less  will  the 
soldiers  suffer.  By  that  time,  the  Europeans  should,  if  possible,  be  un- 
der cover.  ...  I  believe  that  we  shall  have  no  incursions  into  the  Doab 
from  Rohilkund.  This  has  been  essentially  a  miUtary  rebellion.  Large 
bodies  of  certain  classes,  in  particular  of  Mohammedans,  have  joined. 
But  these  will  settle  down  as  the  former  are  broken,  destroyed,  or  dis- 
persed. 

The  most  difficult  problem  is  how  to  deal  with  the  mutineers.  If  we 
wage  a  war  of  extermination  we  can  only  do  so  at  a  large  cost  of  life  on 
our  own  part,  and  with  much  labour  and  expense,  '^he  danger  is  that, 
when  broken  up,  these  desperate  men  may  wage  a  guerilla  warfare  with 
us  for  which  our  troops  and  our  arrangements  are  all  ill-adapted.  I 
think  it  will  prove  sound  policy  to  leave  a  locus pe^iitcntics  of  some  kind 
for  the  least  guilty.  I  do  not  mean  that  I  would  altogether  pardon 
them,  but  I  would  spare  their  lives.  ... 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  you  will  not  have  more  than  one  severe  fight 
in  Rohilkund,  especially  if  the  mutineers  get  well  punished  in  it.  All 
the  Hindus  seem  to  be  in  our  favour,  and  what  they  have  suffered  at 
the  hands  of  the  Mohammedans  must  exasperate  them  against  these 
gentry.  I  think  that  the  Cavalry  I  am  sending  down  may  be  safely 
trusted.  There  are  not  many  Pathans  of  Peshawur  among  these  troops. 
The  Pathans  of  that  quarter  are,  doubtless,  of  the  same  lineage  as  those 
of  Rohilkund,  but  they  have  been  separated  many  generations  back. 
These  men  are,  however,  now  on  the  winning  side,  and,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, can  be  relied  on.  The  Pathans  of  the  Derajat,  are  among 
the  most  trusty  of  our  Punjabi  soldiers.     The  other  Mohammedans  are 


1857-58        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  241 

men  of  Hindu  lineage,  and  acted  in  the  Hansi  district  without  hesitation 
against  the  Mohammedans  of  those  parts.  The  fact  is  that,  under  cer- 
tain circumstances,  and  up  to  a  certain  point,  you  may  trust  most  native 
troops.  The  Punjabis  stood  the  test  of  Delhi  when  matters  were  look- 
ing very  black.  They  will  not  now  fail  us  when  we  are  victorious;  at 
least  not  at  present.  I  would  not  however  recommend  that  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief should  leave  Rohilkund  without  any  European  troops, 
and  pass  on.  I  would  suggest  that  European  Artillery  and  one  regi- 
ment of  European  Infantry  be  detained  in  that  province.  These  and  a 
couple  of  corps  of  Punjab  Infantry  and  a  regiment  of  Cavalry  would  keep 
all  snug,  if  commanded  by  a  proper  officer.  I  would  leave  however  a 
greater  proportion  of  Sikh  Cavalry  in  Rohilkund,  where  the  people  to 
guard  against  are  Mohammedans,  and  take  more  Mohammedan  Cavalry 
into  Oude,  where  the  Hindu  element  among  the  mutineers  abounds. 
However,  as  I  said  before,  with  the  single  exception  of  Vivian's  Res- 
salah,  who  are  highwaymen  and  cutthroats,  I  look  on  the  Mohammedan 
Cavalry  whom  we  are  sending  you  as  a  respectable  and  reliable  body 
of  soldiers. 

The  reinforcements  from  England  are,  at  last,  making  their  appear- 
ance. Drafts  to  the  extent  of  about  five  hundred  men  have  arrived. 
The  7th  Fusiliers  are  now  near  Hyderabad,  and  the  greater  part  of  the 
98th  have  reached  Kurrachi.  What  I  view  with  most  apprehension  is 
the  increasing  number  of  Punjab  troops  generally.  We  have  Punjab  In- 
fantry, Cavalry,  Pioneers,  Artillery,  Mounted  Police,  Foot  Police  !  In 
round  numbers  the  Punjab  troops  of  various  kinds  cannot  fall  short  of 
fifty  thousand  men  !  Now  this  does  not  seem  wise  or  prudent.  If  we 
allow  the  Punjabis  to  feel  their  strength,  we  may  one  day  have  as  much 
trouble  with  them  as  with  the  Hindustanis.  I  have  hung  back  as  much 
as  possible.  But  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  little  is  being  done  in  the  way  of 
raising  native  troops  except  here. 

Unhappily  the  cry  for  war  to  the  knife  was  still  in  the,  ascendant, 

and  Sir  John  Lawrence,  who  could  never  be  accused  of  not  having 

the  courage  of  his  opinions,  wrote  to  press  his  views  in  favour  of 

an  amnesty  on  Lord  Canning. 

February  i,  1S58. 

My  Lord, — I  do  not  know  whether  you  may  feel  disposed  or  not  to 
grant  anything  like  an  amnesty  in  favour  of  the  least  guilty  of  the  muti- 
neers and  insurgents  in  Oude  and  elsewhere.  But  I  feel  persuaded  that 
such  a  measure  would  be  very  politic.  It  is  much  easier  for  people  to 
advocate  the  destruction  of  all  offenders,  than  to  show  how  this  can  be 
effected.  Now  that  we  have  taken  Delhi,  beaten  every  large  body  of 
mutineers  in  the  field,  and  are  prepared  to  enter  Oude  again  in  force, 
we  should  simplify  matters  much  if  we  issued  a  proclamation  declaring 
that  those  mutineers  who  have  not  murdered  their  officers,  or  women 
or  children,  and  who  gave  up  their  arms  shall  be  allowed  to  go  to  their 
homes  and  live  unmolested.     In  like  manner  I  would  deal  with  the  com- 

VOL.  II. — 16 


242  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

mon  insurg-ents.  We  could  then  deal  more  easily  with  th&  desperate 
characters.  At  present,  all  are  held  together  from  the  very  desperation 
of  their  condition.  If  this  continue,  it  is  difficult  to  foresee  when  the 
country  will  be  pacified.  When  the  enemy  can  no  longer  keep  together 
behind  walls  in  numbers,  they  will  break  up  into  small  parties,  plunder 
the  country,  and  carry  on  a  guerilla  war. 

At  present,  many  Englishmen  advocate  a  policy  of  extermination, 
never  reflecting-  how  injurious  such  a  course  of  conduct  must  prove  to 
ourselves.  In  the  same  way  they  advocated  the  annexation  of  the  Punjab 
in  1846,  utterly  forgetful,  or  rather  in  total  ignorance  of  the  circumstance, 
that  we  had  not  the  means  of  carrying  out  such  a  measure.  In  both  the 
Sikh  wars  matters  were  quickly  adjusted  and  peace  and  security  restored, 
because  we  dealt  wisely  with  our  enemies.  After  the  first  war,  we 
treated  the  Sikhs  as  a  nation  with  generosity.  In  the  second  war,  we 
acted  with  equal  consideration  to  them  as  individuals.  While  we  put 
down  crime  with  a  strong  hand,  as  regarded  the  past  we  were  lenient 
and  generous. 

I  fully  admit  that  we  have  now  to  deal  with  a  very  different  enemy. 
Still  we  should  not  also  forget  that,  as  a  ruling  power,  we  have  also  our 
shortcomings  and  want  of  foresight  to  answer  for.  We  placed  tempta- 
tion and  opportunity  before  the  mutineers,  which  it  was  difficult  to  resist. 
Hundreds,  perhaps  thousands,  committed  themselves  simply  from  the 
force  of  circumstances ;  on  the  one  hand  threatened  with  fire  and 
sword  if  they  refused  ;  on  the  other,  plunder  and  social  advantages 
were  pressed  on  them.  Many  hesitated  long,  but  seeing  no  vitality  in 
our  power,  no  prospect  of  succour,  they  concluded  that  the  game  was 
up,  and  began  to  act  for  themselves.  It  is  well  known  that,  in  former 
days,  the  Mahratta  armies  were  recruited  by  the  people  of  the  very 
provinces  which  they  were  laying  waste.  Oppressed  and  plundered  to- 
day, these  people  became  robbers  and  plunderers  in  their  turn.  And 
so  it  may  prove  with  our  enemies.  We  cannot  destroy  them  without 
injuring  all  their  relations  and  connections.  The  one  hundred  thousand 
mutineers  of  the  Bengal  army  and  its  contingents  probably  represent 
half  a  million  of  men.  Will  it  not  then  be  wise  to  reduce  the  number  of 
desperadoes  as  far  as  possible  ?  Unless  matters  are  managed  with  great 
tact  and  judgment,  our  difficulties  in  Oude  may  only  commence  after 
the  capture  of  Lucknow.  The  mutineers  have  their  homes  and  families 
in  Oude.  They  can  fly  no  further.  They  will  disperse,  and  may  make 
a  guerilla  war  of  it  against  us. 

A  noble  letter,  remarkable  alike  for  its  statesmanship  and  its 
humanity  !  The  views  contained  in  it  were  supported,  as  I  gather 
from  other  letters,  by  Sir  James  Outram  from  the  beleaguered  Alum 
Bagh,  and  by  General  Mansfield,  who  was  the  mainspring  of  the 
preparations  for  his  liberation.  But,  for  some  reason  or  other, 
they  were  not  acted  upon  by  the  authorities  till  it  was  too  late, 


1857-58        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  243 

and  with  the  consequences  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  pre- 
dicted. 

On  February  28,  Sir  Colin  Campbell  set  out  from  Cawnpore  at 
the  head  of  the  most  splendid  British  force  which  had  ever  been 
collected  in  India — a  force  consisting  of  some  twenty  thousand 
men  and  one  hundred  and  eighty  guns — to  relieve  Outram  and  re- 
conquer Lucknow.  The  blindest  of  the  mutineers  could  see  that, 
henceforward,  the  cause  of  the  Feringhis  would  not  rest  on  moral 
force  alone,  and  there  was  no  one  in  the  English  army  who  did  not 
feel  convinced  that  the  rebels,  though  they  numbered  over  a  hun- 
dred thousand  men,  would  neither  face  us  in  the  open  field,  nor 
offer  a  prolonged  resistance  behind  their  well-planned  fortifications. 

But  would  it  be  possible  to  destroy  the  enemy  as  a  military 
^orce,  and  so  to  prevent  their  escape  in  armed  bodies  to  regions 
where  we  could  hardly  hope  to  meet  them,  face  to  face,  again  ? 
That  was  the  important  question.  It  was  one  to  which  the  heroic 
defender  of  the  Alum  Bagh,  no  less  than  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
had  given  his  most  anxious  thoughts.  After  many  days  of  hard 
fighting,  the  city  of  Lucknow,  which  had,  for  nine  long  months, 
defied  us,  fell  into  our  power.  But  an  unfortunate  order — the  only 
mistake,  perhaps,  made  by  Sir  Colin  Campbell  in  his  whole  plan  of 
operations — prevented  Outram,  as  he  thought,^  from  inflicting 
upon  the  retreating  army  a  blow  which  must  have  turned  their 
retreat  into  their  rout,  or  their  annihilation  ;  and  the  rebel  force 
lived  to  fight  us  for  many  a  weary  month  to  come. 

Had  an  offer  of  pardon  been  made,  even  now,  to  the  less  guilty 
of  the  fugitives,  it  is  probable  that  it  would  have  sown  dissension 
in  their  ranks,  would  have  cut  down  their  numbers,  have  saved 
many  who  deserved  to  be  saved,  and  have  encouraged  the  popula- 
tion of  the  country  to  declare  themselves  in  our  favour.  Unfortu- 
nately a  proclamation  of  a  very  different  character  appeared — a 
proclamation  not  of  a  discriminating  amnesty,  but  of  an  almost 
indiscriminate  confiscation.  It  confiscated,  in  fact,  with  some 
insignificant  exceptions,  the  whole  of  the  land  in  Oude.  Those 
who  have  nothing  to  lose  have  little  to  fear  ;  and  what  wonder  if, 
finding  that  they  had  only  their  lives  to  sell,  the  mutineers  deter- 
mined to  sell  them  as  dearly  as  possible,  in  a  guerilla  warfare  which 
would  give  us  a  minimum  of  profit  and  a  maximum  of  anxiety  and 
effort  ? 

The  circumstances  and   motives  of  this  strange   proclamation 

^   See  Life  of  Outram^  by  Sir  Frederick  Golclsmid,  vol.  ii.  p.  332. 


244  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

were  partially  explained  by  Lord  Canning  at  a  later  period.  But 
it  carried  dismay  wherever  it  was  known.  It  was  condemned  in 
India  as  in  England.  It  found  as  little  favour  with  Sir  John  Law- 
rence as  with  Sir  James  Outram.  It  was  the  more  perplexing 
because  it  proceeded  from  the  most  humane,  and  courageous,  and 
noble-minded  of  men,  the  man  who  had  withstood  the  panic,  and 
the  passion,  and  the  fierce  cry  for  vengeance  which  rose  from  Eng- 
land and  from  Calcutta  in  the  early  days  of  the  Mutiny.  The 
people  who  were  to  be  dispossessed,  as  it  seemed,  by  a  stroke  of 
the  pen,  of  so  much  that  they  held  dear,  could  hardly  be  said,  in 
any  true  sense  of  the  word,  to  be  British  subjects,  and  certainly 
they  had  received  little  benefit  from  their  short-lived  connection 
with  us.  So  strong  was  the  feeling  at  home  on  the  subject  that 
the  scathing  sarcasms  in  which  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Con- 
trol, who  had  been  Governor-General  himself,  denounced  the  sen- 
tence of  confiscation  would  not,  perhaps,  have  been  thought  too 
strong  for  the  occasion,  or  to  have  deserved  more  than  severe  con- 
demnation, had  he  contented  himself  with  the  pleasure  of  pointing 
them  to  his  taste  and  sending  them  as  a  '  secret  despatch  '  to  the 
object  of  his  censures. 

Other  conquerors  (wrote  Lord  Ellenborough  in  this  famous  missive), 
when  they  have  succeeded  in  disarming  resistance,  have  excepted  a  few 
persons  as  still  deserving  of  punishment,  but  have  with  a  generous  policy, 
extended  their  clemency  to  the  great  body  of  the  people. 

You  have  acted  upon  a  different  principle  ;  you  have  reserved  a  few 
as  deserving  of  special  favour,  and  you  have  struck,  with  what  they  will 
feel,  as  the  severest  of  punishments,  the  mass  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
country. 

We  cannot  but  think  that  the  precedents  from  which  you  have  de- 
parted will  appear  to  have  been  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  wisdom  superior 
to  that  which  appears  in  the  precedent  you  have  made. 

Such  sounding  periods  were  too  good  to  be  lost  to  the  world,  or 
even  to  be  kept  back  from  it  for  a  month  or  two.  And  so,  without 
even  consulting  the  Cabinet  of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  with- 
out giving  the  Governor-General,  to  whom  it  was  addressed,  a 
chance  of  explaining,  or  modifying,  or  withdrawing  what  he  had 
done,  the  author  of  the  ridiculous  '  Sandal-Wood  Gates  Proclama- 
tion,' forthwith  published  his  dispatch  in  England,  thus  doing  his 
best  to  undermine  the  authority  of  Lord  Canning  at  a  time  when 
it  needed  every  support  that  could  be  given  to  it.  Such  an  out- 
rage upon  all  the  decencies  of  official  life  was  enough  to  wreck  a 


1857-58        JOHN   LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  245 

cabinet,  and  it  would  certainly  have  done  so,  had  not  Lord  Ellen- 
borough,  at  once,  resigned  his  seat. 

Happily,  the  confiscation  turned  out  to  be  one  chiefly  in  name. 
That  it  was  never  intended  to  do  all  that  it  appeared  to  do,  is  cer- 
tain from  the  whole  of  Lord  Canning's  previous  career  ;  from  the 
explanations  which  he  subsequently  gave  ;  from  the  spirit  in  which 
he  received  the  remonstrances  of  Outram  and  others  and  allowed 
them  to  add  a  saving  clause  at  its  close  ;  and  from  the  way  in 
which,  on  the  submission  of  the  Talukdars,  it  was  allowed  to  be- 
come almost  a  dead  letter.  But  that  it  was  a  grave  political  mis- 
take Lord  Canning's  most  strenuous  admirers  will  allow. 

The  Oude  proclamation,  in  the  first  instance  (says  John  Lawrence  to 
Mangles  on  May  6),  was  calculated  to  do  harm  rather  than  good  ;  to 
bind  all  men  in  one  desperate  confederation  against  us.  To  tell  men 
that  all  their  lands  and  property  were  confiscate,  to  allow  them  no 
locus  penitentice,  was  to  drive  them  to  despair.  What  made  it  also  the 
less  reasonable,  was  that  we  should  never  have  carried  it  out.  Why 
not  then  when  beating  down  all  opposition  with  one  hand,  hold  out  the 
olive  branch  with  the  other  ?  I  understand  that  the  proclamation  has 
since  been  modified,  and  I  trust  it  is  the  case.  Pray  do  not  quote  what 
I  have  said.  I  could  not  bear  to  say  anything  which  looked  ill-natured 
against  Lord  Canning,  who  has  a  sore  task  before  him.  I  merely  mention 
it  in  the  hope  that  people  in  your  position  at  home  may  lend  your  weight 
to  a  policy  of  conciliation  towards  all  but  the  worst  characters. 

But  the  heavy  burden,  military  and  political,  which  must  rest  on 
the  shoulders  of  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  Oude,  now  that  the 
rebel  army  had  once  more  given  us  the  slip,  was  not  to  fall  on  the 
man  who  had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  struggle  at  the  Alum  Bagh, 
and  who  was  so  much  opposed  to  the  confiscation  policy  which  just 
now  seemed  to  be  in  the  ascendant.  Outram  received  from  the 
Government  the  highest  recognition  for  his  services  which  it  was  in 
its  power  to  give,  the  post  of  Military  Member  of  Council,  and  Robert 
Montgomery  was  summoned  from  the  Punjab  to  take  his  place. 
AVhat  remarkable  energy  Montgomery  had  shown  during  the  Mutiny 
no  reader  of  this  biography  will  need  to  be  reminded.  But  a  few 
lines,  showing  his  chief's  appreciation  of  him,  written  before  there 
was  any  thought  of  separation,  will  be  read  with  interest,  now  that 
the  two  men  were  about,  after  so  life-long  an  intimacy,  to  take,  for 
a  time,  different  paths. 

He  is  a  fine  fellow,  brave  as  a  lion,  and  gentle  as  a  lamb.  I  don't 
know  any  man  in  India  who  has  deserved  better  of  government  than  he 
has.     When  the  insurrection  broke  out  I  was  at  Rawul  Pindi.     It  was 


246  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

mainly  Robert  Montgomery's  moral  courage  and  coolness,  and  decision, 
which  kept  things  straight  at  Lahore.  But  for  him,  the  Hindustani 
troops  would  not  have  been  disarmed,  in  which  case  God  only  knows 
what  would  have  happened. 

Such  a  man  it  was  hard  to  lose,  especially  while  there  were  so 
many  embers  of  the  Mutiny  still  smouldering  in  the  Punjab.  But 
Sir  John  Lawrence  was  determined  not  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his 
old  colleague.  Montgomery  had  been  in  the  Punjab  ever  since  its 
annexation.  He  was  a  friend  of  both  Lawrences,  and  in  him  their 
conflicting  views  might  be  said,  if  not  to  meet  and  harmonize,  at 
all  events,  to  lose  their  edge.  He  seemed,  therefore,  pre-eminently 
the  man  to  bring  the  newly  annexed,  and  still  bitterly  hostile,  prov- 
ince of  Oude  under  the  domain  of  law,  to  succeed  to  the  work  of 
Sir  Henry  Lawrence  and  Sir  James  Outram,  and  to  tone  down  the 
application  of  the  sweeping  Oude  proclamation. 

The  Punjab,  as  we  have  seen,  had  sent  forth  with  eager  profusion 
its  best  soldiers,  Nicholson  and  Chamberlain,  Coke,  Daly,  Alexander 
Taylor,  and  many  others  to  play  their  parts  before  Delhi.  It  was 
now  to  send  forth  its  best  civilians,  one  by  one,  to  some  of  the  most 
difficult  or  important  provinces  in  India,  men  who  would  discharge 
their  trust  with  the  maxims  and  in  the  spirit,  and  with  something 
also  of  the  insatiable  appetite  for  work  and  the  simple-minded  de- 
votion to  duty,  which  they  had  acquired  in  the  Lawrence  school. 
It  was  a  self-emptying  process,  which  can  hardly  yet  be  said  to  have 
spent  its  force.  Sir  Robert  Montgomery  in  Oude  was  only  the  first  of 
a  long  succession  of  Punjab  civilians  who,  like  Sir  Donald  Macleod  or 
Sir  Henry  Davies,  Sir  George  Campbell,  Sir  Richard  Temple  or  Sir 
Charles  Aitcheson,  not  to  speak  here  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  himself, 
have  risen  to  some  of  the  highest  posts  in  the  empire,  and  have  filled 
them  with  an  almost  monotonously  uniform  success. 

The  Punjab  has  thus  been  the  nurse  of  Indian  statesmen  as  well  as 
of  Indian  heroes  ;  and  when  protests  were,  not  altogether  unnatu- 
rally, made  to  Lord  Canning  by  distinguished  civilians  belonging  to 
other  provinces  against  the  number  of  appointments  which  were 
being  given  by  him  to  men  trained  in  the  Punjab,  his  only  answer 
was  to  the  effect  that  he  was  very  sorry,  but  he  must  take  more.  At 
such  a  time,  the  very  best  men  must  be  brought  to  the  front,  inde- 
pendent of  all  considerations  of  precedent,  seniority,  or  etiquette. 

Of  course  what  India  gained,  the  Punjab  lost.  Sickness  or  death, 
or  the  demands  of  the  service  elsewhere,  had  already  made  great 
gaps  in  the  ranks  of  those  whose  names  will  be  for  ever  connected 
with  the  establishment  of  British  rule  in  the  Punjab.     Henry  Law- 


1857-58         JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  247 

rence  was  sleeping  at  Lucknow  ;  John  Nicholson  at  Delhi ;  Mont- 
gomery Avas  already  Chief  Commissioner  of  Oude,  and  Macpherson 
had  been  called  away  by  Sir  Colin  Campbell  to  help  him  in  his 
Oude  campaign  ;  Daly  had  gone  into  Rajpootana  to  help  George 
Lawrence  ;  and  Robert  Napier,  who  had  just  returned  from  Eng- 
land, was  finding  a  splendid  field  for  his  military  abilities  in  the 
North-West  and  in  Central  India.  But  enough  of  the  old  staff  still 
remained  to  keep  alive  the  spirit  and  to  hand  on  to  others  unbroken 
the  best  traditions  of  the  Punjab.  There  still  remained  with  their 
chief,  Donald  Macleod,  who  was  afterwards  to  become  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  the  province,  Becher  and  Thornton,  Edwardes  and 
James,  Temple  and  Barnes,  Lake  and  Pollock,  Roberts  and  Rick- 
etts,  Douglas  Forsyth,  and  Reynell  Taylor.  And,  more  than  this, 
the  places  of  those  who  were  gone  were,  in  many  cases,  filled  by 
men  who  had  left  the  Punjab  in  obedience  to  the  demands  of  the 
Mutiny,  but  now  gravitated  back  towards  it.  Thus  Richard  Law- 
rence returned  from  the  charge  of  the  Jummoo  contingent  and  the 
Jhujjur  district,  and  became  Military  Secretary  to  his  brother  in  the 
room  of  Macpherson.  Neville  Chamberlain,  to  John  Lawrence's 
infinite  delight,  threw  up  the  Adjutant-Generalship  of  the  Bengal 
army,  and  having  recovered  from  his  wound,  returned  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  Punjab  frontier  force,  with  which  his  heart  had  always 
been.  Harry  Lumsden,  too,  who  had  been  shut  up,  with  his 
brother  Peter,  a  close  prisoner  in  Candahar,  at  times  in  some  dan- 
ger of  his  life,  and  always  pining  for  active  and  honourable  service 
during  the  Mutiny  in  India,  was,  at  length,  relieved  from  his  peril- 
ous solitary  confinement,  and  returned  to  the  command  of  the 
Guides,  whom  he  had  originally  helped  to  raise. 

The  object  of  the  Lumsdens  mission,  it  will  be  remembered,  had 
been  to  see  that  the  subsidy  given  by  the  English  Government  to 
the  Ameer  was  applied  to  its  proper  purpose.  But  they  had  been 
able  to  see  nothing  of  the  kind.  Close  prisoners  in  Candahar,  they 
had  seen  about  as  much  of  Afghanistan  as  a  foreigner,  accused  of 
a  crime,  might  see  of  England  from  the  windows  of  a  railway  car- 
riage, as  he  travelled  from  London  to  York,  under  a  strong  escort 
of  police.  They  returned,  therefore,  profoundly  impressed  with  the 
folly  and  the  danger  involved  in  sending  an  Englishman  to  repre- 
sent his  country  among  a  people  so  attached  to  their  independence, 
so  suspicious  of  foreigners,  so  treacherous  and  so  ferocious  as  the 
Afghans. 

Their  mission  did  good  service,  at  the  time  and  for  twenty  years 
to  come,  in  helping  to  drive  this  lesson  home.    And  it  may  be  well, 


248  •         LIFE    OV    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1S57-58 

now  that  the  fate  which  befell  Burnes  and  Macnaghten  in  1841,  and 
might  at  any  time  have  befallen  Lumsden  in  1857,  has,  in  the  recur- 
ring cycle  of  our  folly,  befallen  Cavagnari  in  18S0,  to  drav/  attention 
once  more  to  the  lessons  for  the  future  which  may  be  learned  from 
the  nearly  forgotten  mission  of  the  Lumsdens. 

Among  the  letters  of  congratulation  which  had  been  crowding  in 
upon  Sir  John  Lawrence  from  all  parts  of  the  Empire,  since  the 
taking  of  Delhi,  the  first  in  point  of  interest  must  have  been  one 
from  his  former  chief.  Lord  Dalhousie.  Worn  down  by  the  inroads 
of  rapidly  increasing  disease,  and  his  superlative  merits  as  an  ad- 
ministrator temporarily  obscured  by  the  share  which  his  annexations 
were  then  supposed  to  have  had  in  bringing  on  the  Mutiny,  Lord 
Dalhousie  had  been  watching,  in  dignified  silence,  but  with  rapt 
attention  and  interest,  the  bursting  of  the  storm  around  his  pet 
province  and  his  Chief  Lieutenant.  If  his  annexations  had  in  any 
way  precipitated  the  storm,  he  could,  at  least,  feel  that  it  was  by  the 
province  which  he  had  first  annexed,  and  by  the  Lieutenant  whom 
he  had  himself  placed  there,  that  it  had  been,  in  great  part,  laid  ; 
and  little  wonder  if,  while  he  still  said  nothing  of  himself,  but  con- 
fidently left  the  part  he  had  played  to  the  judgment  of  a  remote 
posterity,  he  poured  forth  his  sympathy  to  John  Lawrence  thus  • — 

Malta:  November  28,  1857. 

My  dear  John, — I  have  not  troubled  you  with  any  letters  during  the 
last  terrible  months,  because  I  felt  assured  that  you  would  not  doubt  the 
deep  interest  with  which  I  should  watch  your  measures  and  their  results  ; 
in  which  case  I  thought  I  should  do  well  to  abstain  from  occupying  even 
a  few  minutes  of  your  time.  But  now  that  a  little  blue  sky  is  beginning 
to  appear  through  the  clouds,  and  now  that  the  Gazette  has  begun  to 
speak,  I  must  break  silence,  and  congratulate  you  on  the  Red  Ribbon 
(the  G.  C.  B.)  which  you  have  so  nobly  won  for  yourself.  Never  was 
that  honour  more  fully  earned,  and  never  has  it  been  conferred  with 
more  unanimous  assent  from  the  country,  than  when  it  was  allotted  to 
you. 

You  will  easily  conceive  with  what  pride  I  have  seen  the  part  you  have 
played  in  these  great  scenes,  and  how  the  Punjab  has  been  the  great 
bulwark  of  defence  for  the  Indian  Empire,  in  the  time  of  its  seeming 
extremity.  Be  assured  that  your  conduct  and  services  are  fully  appre- 
ciated by  your  countrymen,  and  that  they  are  conscious  of  and  grateful 
for  the  invaluable  aid  that  has  been  rendered  by  you,  splendidly  backed 
by  Montgomery  and  by  Nicholson,  and,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  see,  by 
every  man  under  your  orders. 

Once  more  let  m.e  congratulate  you  heartily  and  affectionately  on  your 
Ribbon,  and  on  the  fame  of  which  it  is  the  emblem.     I  knew,  before  I 


1857-58  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A   PACIFICATOR.  249 

left  England,  that  the  Cabinet  designed  more  than  one  marl<  of  its  con- 
fidence and  approbation  for  you,  and  I  have  rejoiced  in  it  all.  I  would 
to  God  that  your  brother  Henry  had  lived  to  enjoy  the  honours  which 
would,  undoubtedly,  have  been  ascribed  to  him,  and  to  share  with  your 
friends  the  pleasure  which  his  warm  and  generous  heart  would  have 
especially  felt,  in  witnessing  the  distinction  you  were  earning  for  yourself, 
side  by  side  with  him.  But  he  rests  in  the  death  he  would  himself  have 
wished  to  die,  and  his  name  will  long  live  after  him. 

Pray  remember  me  to  Montgomery,  and  to  Edwardes,  and  Lake  and 
any  of  the  old  lot  whom  you  may  see.  I  remember  you  all,  on  my  own 
behalf,  with  constant  and  grateful  regard. 

Lady  Susan  will  not  be  content  without  my  adding  her  best  regards  and 
congratulations  to  you.  We  are  in  this  island  for  the  winter.  I  hope  it 
may  do  me  good,  for  I  am  still  quite  disabled.     Always,  my  dear  John, 

Most  sincerely  yours, 

Dalhousie. 

To  this  John  Lawrence  replied  : — 

Camp,  en  route  from  Mooltan  to  Lahore  :  January  14,  1858. 
My  dear  Lord  Dalhousie, — I  have  to  thank  you  very  sincerely  for  your 
kind  letter  of  November  28.  It  is  a  source  of  very  great  satisfaction  to 
me  to  find  that  my  exertions  are  acknowledged  and  appreciated  by  my 
friends  and  my  countrymen.  This  is  indeed  the  best  reward  that  any 
man  can  obtain,  next  to  that  of  feeling  that  he  has  done  his  duty  and 
been  useful  in  his  generation.  Nevertheless,  I  am  well  pleased  to  receive 
the  fresh  decoration  which  has  been  given  me. 

We  have  indeed  had  a  terrible  time.  Up  to  the  capture  of  Delhi,  the 
scales  w-ere  trembling  in  the  balance.  The  Punjabis  of  all  classes  have 
behaved  admirably,  and  the  zeal  and  the  courage  of  the  Punjab  troops 
have  far  surpassed  my  hopes  and  expectations.  Still,  if  Delhi  had  not 
fallen,  we  must  have  been  ruined.  Had  the  troops  retreated,  all  must 
have  been  lost.  Had  indeed  the  storming  not  suceeded  all  must  have 
gone.  To  Nicholson,  Alexander  Taylor  of  the  Engineers,  and  Neville 
Chamberlain,  the  real  merit  of  our  success  is  due.  Chamberlain  was 
severely  wounded  soon  after  his  arrival  at  Delhi,  and  until  the  actual 
storm,  was,  in  great  measure,  laid  on  the  shelf.  But  when  our  troops 
got  inside,  and  Nicholson  was  mortally  wounded.  Chamberlain  again 
came  to  the  front,  and  kept  un  the  flagging  spirits  of  our  people  and 
directed  the  movements  of  the  troops.  John  Nicholson,  from  the  mo- 
ment of  his  arrival,  was  the  life  and  the  soul  of  the  army.  Before  he  went 
down  he  struck  the  only  real  blows  which  the  mutineers  received  in  the 
Punjab,  he  led  the  assault,  and  was  the  first  man  over  the  breach. 
Alexander  Taylor,  though  only  the  second  Engineer  before  Delhi,  was 
really  the  officer  who  designed  and  arranged  all  the  scientific  operations 
which  led  to  the  success  of  the  assault,  and,  in  the  actual  attack,  was  as 
forward  as  any  man  that  day. 

Since  Delhi  fell,  all  has  gone  well.     There  has  been  doubt,  and  hesi- 


250  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

tation,  and  delay,  but  always  progress.  The  mutineers  produced  no 
one  man  of  ability,  or  even  ot  enterprise.  Their  fatuity  was  extreme. 
They,  literally,  seem  seldom  to  have  advanced  until  we  were  ready  to 
meet  them.  The  Jodhpore  Legion  walked  into  our  hands.  The  Gwalior 
mutineers,  whose  presence  at  Delhi  would  have  given  the  victory  to  their 
cause,  never  moved.  Had  they  even  confronted  the  pursuing  Column 
under  Colonel  Grant,  disaster  must  have  occurred.  But  no  ;  they  waited, 
and  attacked  Cawnpore  when  eight  hundred  Europeans  were  ready  to 
meet  them.  I  think  that  the  neck  of  the  Mutiny  is  broken.  There  is  no 
one  military  body  who  have  not  in  their  turn  been  defeated  ;  and  none 
fight  with  power  the  second  time,  except  when  behind  walls.  We  have 
taken  the  greater  part  of  their  guns,  and  the  defeat  and  capture  of  the 
rest  can  only  be  the  work  of  time.  The  danger,  however,  is  that  guerilla 
warfare  may  follow.  Then  again  the  whole  civil  administration  has  to 
be  reorganised,  and  a  new  military  system  devised.  It  seems  to  me 
difficult  to  see  how  all  this  is  to  be  done. 

For  myself,  my  thoughts  are  bent  on  home.  I  can  never  hope  to  retire 
at  a  more  auspicious  juncture.  There  is  nothing  to  induce  me  to  pass 
the  rest  of  my  life  in  exile.  So  long  as  I  am  useful,  I  shall  be  Chief  Com- 
missioner of  the  Punjab.  But  this  will  never  enable  me  to  keep  a  son 
at  home  in  my  old  age.  I  say  not  all  this  in  the  way  of  complaint,  but 
simply  to  account  to  your  Lordship  for  my  movements.  I  had  arranged 
to  go  home  with  my  wife  this  very  month,  but  a  sense  of  honour  and 
duty  has  bound  me  to  my  post.  I  trust  that  the  political  horizon  will  be 
cleared  enough  to  allow  me  to  take  my  C07tge,  in  another  year.  My  wife 
left  Mooltan  a  few  days  ago  for  England  in  very  delicate  health.  I  was 
rejoiced,  however,  to  see  her  and  my  children  on  their  way  home.  India, 
for  many  a  day,  will  be  no  place  for  English  women. 

My  poor  brother  Henry  died  nobly  at  his  post.  To  his  intelligence 
and  foresight  the  whole  of  the  Lucknow  garrison  owe  their  lives.  Nothing 
but  these  precautions  could  have  enabled  our  people  to  make  the  stand 
they  have  done.  All  our  Punjab  officers  have  done  well— General  Sydney 
Cotton,  Herbert  Edwardes,  Robert  Montgomery,  my  brother  Richard, 
and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Macpherson  in  particular. 

I  regret  much  to  hear  that  your  Lordship  is  still  so  great  a  sufferer. 
Should  you  be  at  Malta  as  I  pass  through,  I  will  make  a  point  of  landing 
and  calling.     Pray  present  my  compliments  to  Lady  Susan. 

Another  letter  of  congratulation  which  reached  John  Lawrence 
about  the  same  time  as  that  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  must  have  been 
ahnost  equally  acceptable  to  him.  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  in  his 
energy  and  his  vivacity,  his  thirst  for  reform,  his  hatred  of  corrup- 
tion,, his  sympathy  with  the  oppressed  and  with  the  masses  every- 
where, was  a  man  very  much  after  John  Lawrence's  own  heart. 
Macaulay,  who  was  soon  afterwards  to  become  his  brother-in-law, 
describes  him,  in  one  of  his  most  lifelike  letters  thus  : — 


1857-58         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  25 1 

He  is  a  most  stormy  reformer.  Lord  William  Bentinck  said  to  me 
before  anyone  had  observed  his  attentions  to  Nancy  :  that  man  is  almost 
always  on  the  right  side  in  every  question,  and  it  is  well  that  it  is  so,  for 
he  gives  a  most  confounded  deal  of  trouble  when  he  happens  to  take 
the  wrong  one.  ...  He  is  the  soul  of  every  scheme  for  diffusing  educa- 
tion among  the  natives  of  this  country.  ...  He  has  no  small  talk  ;  his 
mind  is  full  of  schemes  of  moral  and  intelligent  improvement,  and  his 
zeal  boils  over  in  his  talk.  His  topics,  even  in  courtship,  are  steam  navi- 
gation, the  education  of  the  natives,  the  equalisation  of  the  sugar  duties, 
the  substitution  of  the  Roman  for  the  Arabic  alphabet  in  the  Oriental 
languages.' 

What  Trevelyan  was  as  a  young  man  in  1834  at  Delhi,  that  he 
has  been  all  his  Hfe,  and  that  he  is  in  1881,  at  the  moment  when  I 
am  writing.  In  1857  he  had  written  a  series  of  admirable  letters 
upon  Indian  subjects  to  the  '  Times,'  under  the  then  well-known 
signature  of  '  Indophilus.'  He  was  therefore  just  the  man  to  whom 
John  Lawrence  could  open  out  his  views  on  the  important  questions 
which  were  crying  for  solution  in  India.  The  series  of  letters 
which  John  Lawrence  wrote  to  him  are,  in  my  opinion,  among  the 
most  remarkable  he  Avrote  at  all.  But  I  am  only  able  to  quote  a 
few  salient  passages. 

Camp,  Mooltan  Road  :   December  16,  1857. 

My  dear  Trevelyan, — Many  thanks  for  your  letter  of  October  20,  and 
kind  congratulations.  We  have  Just  been  passing  through  a  frightful 
ordeal.  It  is  by  God's  mercy  alone  that  an  English  person  is  alive  on 
this  side  of  India.  I  recognised  your  old  signature  (in  the  'Times')  at 
once.  I  don't  think  I  saw  all  your  letters,  but  I  did  see  most  of  them, 
and  liked  all  I  saw,  though  I  do  not  think  that  Delhi  would  answer  for 
our  metropolis,  in  consequence  of  its  insalubrity.  I  am  glad  you  do  not 
advocate  its  destruction.  It  is  a  position  of  great  importance,  and  should 
be  held  by  us.  We  have  been  almost  as  much  to  blame  for  what  has 
occurred  as  have  the  people. 

I  have  as  yet  neither  seen  nor  heard  anything  to  make  me  believe  that 
any  conspiracy  existed  beyond  the  army  ;  and  even  in  it,  one  can  scarcely 
say  there  was  a  conspiracy.  The  cartridge  question  was  to  my  mind, 
indubitably,  the  immediate  cause  of  the  revolt.  Bu*  the  army  had  for  a 
long  time  been  in  an  unsatisfactory  state.  It  had  long  seen  and  felt  its 
power.  We  had  gone  on,  year  by  year,  adding  to  its  numbers,  without 
adding  to  our  European  force.  Our  contingents,  which,  under  better 
arrangements,  might,  like  the  Punjab  troops,  have  acted  as  a  counter- 
poise, were  .really  a  part  of  the  army.  All  the  men  were  'Poorheas.' 
The  Bengal  army  was  one  great  brotherhood,  in  which  all  the  members 
felt  and  acted  in  union. 

*  Life  and  Letters  of  Lord  ^facaulay,  by  George  Trevelyan,  !M.P.,  vol.  i .  p.  3S7. 


252  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

Our  treasuries,  arsenals,  forts  were  all  garrisoned  by  them.  As  one 
letter  I  intercepted  said,  it  was  a  saf  mydan  (a  clear  level)  from  Delhi 
to  Calcutta,  and  as  a  Hindustani  observed  to  a  Sikh  friend  of  mine,  the 
pro[)ortion  of  European  soldiers  to  Hindustanis  was  about  equal  to  the 
salt  a  man  consumed  in  his  Chupatti.  The  Mohammedans  took  advan- 
tage of  the  revolt  to  convert  it  into  a  religious  and  political  affair.  The 
missionaries  and  indeed  religion,  really  speaking,  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  matter.  It  was  an  affair  of  caste,  of  personal  impurity.  Both  Hindu 
and  Mohammedan  believed  that  we  meant  by  a  bit  of  legerdemain  to 
make  them  all  Christians.  Religion,  as  you  know,  with  them,  consists 
in  matters  of  ceremony.  Provided  missionaries  talked  to  them  without 
acrimony,  I  believe  they  would  never  have  objected  to  their  talking  for 
ever  on  religion.  This,  however,  only  applies  to  the  body  of  the  people, 
including  the  soldiers.  Of  course  there  are  many  fanatics.  A  sense  of 
power,  then,  defective  discipline,  and  want  of  sufficient  employment 
ruined  the  Bengal  army.  Reform  was  impracticable,  for  the  officers 
would  not  admit  that  any  was  necessary,  and  nobody  not  in  the  army 
was  supposed  to  know  anything  about  it. 

I  think  that  we  have  now  weathered  the  storm.  The  worst  seems 
over.  But  great  and  radical  changes  are  necessary,  and  who  is  to  effect 
them  ?  We  need  a  man  at  the  head  of  affairs  of  great  heart  and  head, 
and  of  vast  experience.  Nothing  short  of  this  will  do  what  is  necessary. 
Condign  punishment  should  of  course  be  meted  out  to  all  murderers 
and  the  leaders  of  mutiny.  But  I  see  every  danger  of  justice  degenera- 
ting into  revenge  of  a  savage  character.  Already  we  hear  of  strange 
deeds  being  perpetrated  by  private  individuals  at  Delhi  and  elsewhere. 
Already  it  looks  too  like  a  general  war  of  white  man  against  black. 
There  is  little  fear  that  offenders  will  escape  the  just  penalty  of  their 
crimes  ;  there  is  much  that  many  innocent  people  will  suffer.  It  was  a 
great  misfortune  that  troops,  even  in  small  numbers,  were  not  sent  out 
overland.  Thousands  of  natives  who  in  the  first  instance  kept  aloof,  fell 
off",  thinking  that  our  hour  was  come.  They  would  have  sided  with  us  if 
they  had  seen  a  chance  ;  but  with  the  general  defection  around,  and  no 
aid  within  hail,  it  was  not  surprising  if  they  were  carried  away  also. 

We  should  have  a  European  army  of  at  least  double  its  former  strength 
in  India,  carefully  kept  up  to  the  maximum  strength.  The  native  army 
should  be  no  greater  than  is  absolutely  necessary.  It  should  be  officered 
by  men  carefully  selected  and  removable  simply  because  they  were  not  suc- 
cessful in  the  discharge  of  their  duties.  The  Mutiny  Act,  as  regards  native 
soldiers,  should  be  abolished — at  any  rate,  made  to  accord  with  common 
sense.  No  man  should  escape  punishment  for  technical  reasons.  The  offi- 
cers should  be  selected  in  England  by  competition,  as  is  done  with  civil- 
ians. They  should  join  European  corps  and  learn  their  duty  and  habits  of 
discipline,  and  selections  should  be  made  from  this  body  for  native  corps. 
Officers  so  selected  should  receive  extra  pay,  and  so  have  a  strong  in- 
ducement to  exert  themselves  and  give  satisfaction.  The  cry  for  num- 
bers of  officers  for  native  corps  is  merely  a  cry  for  rapid  promotion. 


1857-58        JOHN   LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  253 

The  police  should  be  re-organised  and  divided  into  two  bodies — organised 
police  on  military  principles  for  guards  of  gaols,  treasuries  and  the  like, 
and  detective  police  for  other  duties.  The  latter  will  not  be  benefited 
by  drill.  This  does  not  give  discipline  and  moral  training,  which  is 
what  is  wanted.  Select  such  men  carefully,  pay  them  properly,  look 
after  them  thoroughly,  reward  and  punish  promptly,  and  you  will  have 
good  police.  So  far  from  being  surprised  at  their  faults,  I  only  wonder 
they  did  so  much  as  they  did.  The  Sepoys  in  the  army  would  never 
have  done  one-fourth  of  their  work. 

The  condition  of  the  Lawrence  Asylum  had  for  some  months 
past  been  an  object  of  anxiety  to  Sir  John  Lawrence.  Since  the 
death  of  his  brother,  its  founder  and  chief  supporter,  contributions 
had  fallen  off  so  much  that  there  was  fear  lest  its  usefulness  might 
be  seriously  curtailed  at  the  very  time  when,  owing  to  the  increase 
of  European  soldiers  in  India,  it  would  be  most  required  and  ap- 
preciated. It  was  able,  under  the  care  of  the  Rev.  W.  Parker,  to 
give  340  boys  and  girls, — all  the  orphans  of  European  soldiers — a 
home,  an  education,  and  in  most  cases  also,  the  means  of  obtaining 
an  honest  livelihood,  and  all  this  in  a  climate  eminently  suited  to 
Europeans.  It  would  have  been  sad  indeed  if  such  an  institution 
had  been  allowed  to  fall  ;  and  John  Lawrence,  moved  by  brotherly 
as  well  as  by  wider  considerations,  threw  himself  heartily  into  the 
work.  He  had  already  obtained,  by  direct  application  to  Lord 
Canning,  a  grant  from  Government,  and  now  his  correspondence 
with  Trevelyan  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  urging  its  claims  for  a 
permanent  endowment  upon  the  committee  charged  with  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  funds  which  had  been  raised  in  London  for  the 
sufferers  in  the  Mutiny.  What  the  result  of  his  influence  and  exer- 
tions was,  is  borne  witness  to  by  the  existence,  not  of  the  '  Law- 
rence Asylum,'  but  of  the  'Lawrence  Asylums,'  at  Kussowlie,  at 
Aboo,  and  at  Ootacamunde,  and  by  the  noble  work  they  have  done 
ever  since. 

Another  of  his  letters  to  Trevelyan  deals  with  the  question  of 
throwing  open  the  Civil  Service  to  public  competition,  and  contains 
many  characteristic  opinions  and  remarks,  which,  if  some  of  them 
seem  like  truisms  now,  it  will  be  remembered  were  paradoxes,  or 
nearly  paradoxes  then. 

Camp,  near  the  head  of  the  Bari  Doab  Canal  :  April  23,  1858. 
My  dear  Trevelyan, — The  mail  is  about  to  go  out,  and  I  have  little 
time  to  answer  your  letter  of  March  1 1.     However,  I  have  often  thought 
over  many  of  the  points  discussed  in  your  memorandum,  and  will  give 
you  my  opinion  to  the  best  of  my  ability. 


254  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

I  am  a  strong  advocate  for  extending  the  competition  system  through- 
out all  branches  of  the  army.  I  am  sure  it  will  work  well.  As  yet,  time 
has  not  allowed  for  a  fair  trial  in  our  Civil  Service,  but  the  specimens 
which  it  has  furnished  to  the  Punjab  have  been  favourable.  We  have 
received  three  of  these  civilians;  none  of  them  have  been  at  work  more 
than  about  one  year,  and  all  are  well  thought  of — all  are  above  the  aver- 
age. One  in  particular  (Aitcheson)  promises  to  make  a  capital  officer. 
Montgomery,  to  my  great  regret,  has  been  carried  off  to  Oude.  I  think, 
with  Dr.  Vaughan,  that  it  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  a  clever  boy,  who 
has  obtained  high  proficiency  at  school,  cannot  be  an  adept  at  manly 
exercises.  I  think  also  that  mere  bookworms  are  not  likely  to  be  candi- 
dates for  the  English  services.  The  circumstance  that  a  boy  is  willing 
to  come  forward  and  compete  for  an  appointment  where  the  standard  is 
high,  is  indicative  of  a  certain  amount  of  'grit'  in  his  composition. 
Moreover,  admitting  that  a  few  bookworms  do  find  their  way  into  the 
service,  there  are  parts  which  will  suit  them  and  in  which  they  may  do 
good  service.  Such  men  are  in  every  respect  superior  as  public  officers 
to  a  regular  dunce — a  thorough  hard  bargain.  .    .  . 

Nothing  can  be  more  important  than  to  secure  for  the  army  a  body  of 
really  able  officers,  of  men  who  have  received  a  good  education,  and, 
from  boyhood,  have  been  accustomed  to  use  their  intellects.  With  an 
army  so  officered  it  would  be  impossible  for  any  government  to  appoint 
incapable  commanders.  Public  opinion  would  not  permit  such  abuses. 
As  it  is  now,  mediocrity  is  the  rule  of  the  day;  capacity  the  exception. 
Public  sympathy,  even  in  the  army,  is  in  favour  of  a  chief  of  inferior  tal- 
ents. It  is  considered  cruel  to  pass  him  over.  Nothing  short  of  a  calam- 
ity will  ensure  a  proper  selection.  The  zeal,  energy,  ability,  and  real 
experience  which  prevent  misfortune,  are  seldom  to  be  found  in  high 
quarters.   .  .  . 

I  have  always  considered  that  the  maximum  age  for  civilians  might  be 
reduced  with  advantage.  We  want  well-educated  gentlemen  rather 
than  first-rate  scholars.  Men  who  come  to  India  at  a  comparatively 
mature  age,  such  as  clergymen  and  lawyers,  seldom  like  the  country, 
and  are  apt  not  to  sympathise,  as  they  should  do,  with  the  natives.  I 
would  certainly  place  the  examinations  under  the  control  of  a  carefully 
organised  Department.  Otherwise  the  papers  may  not  maintain  an 
equable  standard,  and  a  different  estimate  be  placed  at  different  times 
on  the  same  subject.  Clerical  appointments  should  be  given  to  the  can- 
didates of  the  highest  character.  We  have  some  admirable  clergymen 
in  India,  but  they  are  not,  as  a  body,  what  they  might  be.  We  do  not  find 
that  piety  and  zeal  which  are  so  desirable. 

Again,  I  would  recommend  that  officers  should  not  first  be  separately 
posted  to  the  Cavalry  and  Infantry.  I  would  appoint  them  all  to  the 
Infantry.  It  is  difficult  for  an  officer  to  judge  for  which  of  the  two 
branches  he  is  best  suited  until  he  has  been  in  the  service  some  time. 
Peculiar  qualifications  are  necessary  to  make  a  good  Cavalry  officer.  A 
whole  regiment  is  paralysed  if  its  commander  prove  unequal  to  an  op- 


1S57-58        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  255 

portunity.  As  officers  advance  in  life,  some  become  unfitted  for  this 
branch  of  the  service.  They  become  fat  and  unwieldy.  They  lose  the 
nerve  and  dash  essential  in  a  good  Cavalry  officer.  In  India  this  is  par- 
ticularly the  case.  But  such  officers  might  do  well  in  any  grade  in  the 
Infantry.  One  of  the  reasons  why  the  Regular  native  Cavalry  has  so 
seldom  distinguished  itself  may  be  attributed  to  this  circumstance.  The 
best  Cavalry  officers  in  the  Indian  service  have  not  belonged  to  the  Reg- 
ular Cavalry. 

Again,  I  am  a  strong  advocate  for  the  system  at  present  in  force  in 
India.  That  is,  I  would  neither  have  all  officers,  in  the  first  instance, 
appointed  military  men,  nor  would  I  prevent  the  latter  holding  civil 
appointments.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  a  great  advantage  to  Government 
having  the  power  of  employing  able  soldiers  in  this  way.  I  look  on  it 
that  the  administration  of  the  Punjab  has  greatly  benefited  by  the  mixture 
of  civilians  and  military  men.  It  has  excited  a  wholesome  competition. 
If  we  really  deserve  any  credit  for  the  management  of  the  Punjab,  it  is 
because  we  have  steadfastly  endeavoured  to  improve  the  administration. 
We  have  encouraged  zeal  and  ability,  and  have  used  all  our  powers  to 
get  rid  of  incapable  officers.  Hence,  with  many  defects,  we  have  attained 
fair  success.  In  the  North-West  the  civilians  look  on  the  service  too 
much  as  a  vested  right.  This  is  not  the  case  here.  Again,  surely  able 
soldiers  have  not  degenerated  by  civil  employment.  I  hold  that  the  very 
reverse  has  been  the  case,  and  that  they  have  become  more  efficient  sol- 
diem  from  the  very  opportunities  which  civil  employment  has  given  them. 
The  great  want  in  the  army  is  administrative  experience.  Civil  employ- 
ment supplies  this  defect.  General  John  Jacob,  John  Nicholson,  Herbert 
Edwardes,  my  brother  Henry  were  (or  are)  all  good  soldiers,  and  their 
civil  experience  improved  their  natural  gifts.  The  way  in  which  the 
English  act  is  quite  unreasonable.  No  objection  is  raised  to  an  officer 
who  has  been  twenty  years  vegetating  in  Her  Majesty's  army,  afterwards 
holding  the  highest  military  posts.  But  an  outcry  is  raised  and  the 
service  is  considered  to  suffer  when  an  officer  of  the  Indian  army  even 
returns  to  his  regiment  after  improving  his  natural  abilities,  and  extend- 
ing his  experience  in  civil  employment. 

I  think  the  Council  question  is  a  very  difficult  one.  Your  scheme  ap- 
pears a  better  one  for  the  public  service  than  Lord  Palmerston's,  but,  if 
the  members  are  to  have  no  voice  in  the  final  decision,  it  seems  very 
difficult  for  them  to  take  a  sufficient  interest  in  it.  After  thoroughly 
mastering  a  subject  and  caring  for  it  in  all  its  details,  to  have  one's  opin- 
ion quietly  set  aside,  perhaps  by  a  chief  who  did  not  imderstand  it  at  all, 
would  surely  be  gall  and  bitterness.  Delhi  will,  I  hope,  now  do  very 
well.  I  stopped  the  different  civil  officers  hanging  at  their  own  will  and 
pleasure,  and  appointed  a  Commission,  since  which  matters  have  greatly 
improved,  and  confidence  among  the  natives  has  been  restored.     It  was 

most  unfortunate being  in  power  at  Delhi.     He  did  a  great  deal 

of  harm.  He  has,  however,  now  gone  home.  I  was  sorry  myself  for  the 
Bulluhghur  Raja,  but  I  believe  he  deserved  his  fate.     Whatever   may 


256  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

have  been  his  real  views  and  wishes,  he  took  a  decided  part  against 
us. 

Matters  are  slowly  improving  in  the  North-West.  The  mutineers 
cannot  stand  a  moment  before  our  troops.  The  insurgents  are  beaten 
down  everywhere.  But  we  neither  kill  them  nor  forgive  them.  They 
escape,  break  up  in  guerilla  parties,  and  plunder  the  country.  We 
ought  long  ago  to  have  had  a  discriminating  amnesty,  that  is  an  amnesty 
which  included  all  but  the  murderers  in  cold  blood  of  our  countrymen 
and  countrywomen.  It  must  come  to  this,  after  we  have  lost  a  few  thou- 
sand more  of  our  soldiers  by  exposure  and  disease. 

The  reconstruction  of  the  civil  government  will  be  no  easy  task.  The 
Governor-General,  having  already  more  work  on  his  hands  than  he  could 
manage,  has  now  undertaken  the  administration  of  the  North-West  Pro- 
vinces. Montgomery  is  perhaps  the  best  man  available  for  Oude.  He 
did  admirably  here,  and  I  am  under  the  greatest  obligations  to  him.  I 
hope  his  merits  will  be  acknowledged  and  rewarded.  General  S.  Cotton 
and  Herbert  Edwardes  also  have  been  of  effective  service. 

But  Government  still  held  out  no  hopes  of  an  amnesty.  The 
*  Special  Commissioners '  were  still  using,  and  in  too  many  cases 
abusing,  the  special  powers  of  life  and  death  committed  to  them 
under  the  most  ghastly  of  necessities  by  Lord  Canning.  He  knew 
that  the  power  was  being  abused,  and  he  was  deeply  pained  by  it,  and 
in  several  cases  which  were  brought  before  him  rebuked  the  offen*der 
with  all  the  weight  of  his  moral  dignity.  But  he  did  not,  as  yet,  see 
his  way  to  withdrawing  the  trust  generally.  He  was  able  therefore 
to  deal  only  with  the  symptoms,  not  with  the  source  of  the  disease, 
and  the  result  was  that,  in  some  districts,  no  native  soldier,  I  might 
almost  say  no  native,  felt  his  life  to  be  safe.  The  scenes  which  I 
have  described  at  Delhi  were  being  or  had  been  witnessed  at  Cawn- 
pore,  at  Benares,  at  Allahabad,  and  elsewhere  on  an  even  more  ter- 
rible scale.  'Things  were  done  and  gloried  in  during  these  times,' 
writes  to  me  one  who,  at  the  time  of  the  Mutiny,  filled  one  of  the 
highest  offices  in  the  Indian  Empire,  '  which  would  have  disgraced 
the  king  of  Ashanti.'  A  'white  Pandy  '  was  the  term  of  reproach 
thrown  in  the  teeth  of  those  who  dared  to  talk  of  justice  or  humanity 
or  to  hint  that  the  time  had  come  when  none  but  proved  mutineers 
and  murderers  should  be  put  to  death.  It  is  easier  to  awake  the 
appetite  for  hanging  and  shooting  than  to  satisfy  it.  There  were 
certain  civilians  and  military  officers  who  were  notorious  through- 
out the  whole  of  India  for  their  thirst  for  blood.  '  Peafowls, 
patridges,  and  Pandies  rose  together,'  says  one  military  sportsman 
and  writer,  who  has  unconsciously  blazoned  his  own  shame  and 
those   of  his   cloth,    'but  the   latter  gave  the  best  sport.'     'The 


1S57-58         JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  257 

Avenger  '  was  the  apt  nickname  given  to  one  of  these  worthies  ; 
*  Attila  '  to  another.  Those  who  thought  or  acted  otherwise  were 
brow-beaten  or  insulted  in  the  cutcherry  or  at  the  mess.  '  What  am 
I  to  do  ? '  said  J.  N.  Batten,  the  Commissioner  of  Cawnpore,  who, 
from  the  moment  of  his  arrival  there  in  November,  had  set  his  face 
against  such  deeds,  to  Sir  James  Outram,  who,  like  the  best  and  brav- 
est soldiers  of  the  time — Colin  Campbell,  Mansfield,  Hope  Grant, 
and  Inglis — shrunk  from  shedding  blood  otherwise  than  on  the  field 
of  battle,  or  after  a  legal  trial — '  What  am  I  to  do  ? '  '  Do  you  fear 
God  or  man  ? '  replied  Sir  James.  '  If  you  fear  God,  do  as  you  are 
doing  and  bear  the  insults  that  are  heaped  upon  you.  If  you  fear 
man  and  the  mess,  let  them  hang  their  number  every  day.' 

The  general  outlook  was  thus  becoming  worse  and  worse,  and 
Sir  John  Lawrence,  on  May  19,  wrote  thus  to  Trevelyan  : — 

We  are  not  doing  very  well  out  here.  We  are  making  progress,  but  it 
is  very  slow.  From  one  cause  or  another,  much  valuable  time  was  lost  in 
the  cold  weather,  and  at  last,  when  Lucknow  was  attacked,  the  great  body 
of  the  mutineers  were  allowed  to  slip  through  our  hands.  This,  indeed, 
has  happened  everywhere.  Finding  that  they  cannot  face  us  in  the  field, 
or  indeed  in  masses  even  behind  walls,  and  that  they  have  lost  most  of 
their  guns,  and  seeing  no  hopes  of  pardon,  they  are  breaking  up  into 
gi»erilla  parties.  In  this  way,  they  worry  and  harass  our  troops  a  good 
deal,  and  I  do  not  see  the  end  of  it.  We  have  had  some  little  contrctejups 
arising  from  bad  management.  But  our  real  enemy  is  the  climate. 
While  we  march  one  mile  the  mutineers  move  three.  It  is  something 
like  setting  bulldogs  to  run  down  jackals.  Neither  European  infantry 
nor  European  cavalry  can  do  it.  What  little  is  done  is  effected  by  the 
Punjabi  Cavalry.  But  the  tendency  is  to  move  large  massive  Brigades 
encumbered  with  many  carts  and  tents,  commanded  by  officers  who 
desire  to  risk  nothing  and  act  according  to  the  rules  of  war. 

Now  what  the  occasion  demands  is  a  very  different  system.  We 
should  hold  central  points  and  send  out  flying  Brigades  under  young  but 
experienced  soldiers — men  who  really  understand  what  guerilla  war- 
fare requires.  Such  troops,  unencumbered  with  baggage  except  what 
they  carried  on  ponies  and  mules,  and  able,  on  an  emergency,  to  move 
thirty  or  forty  miles  and  deal  their  blow,  would  soon  produce  great  re- 
sults. At  present  the  North-West  is  perfectly  quiet,  only  exposed  to 
predatory  incursions  from  the  left  bank  of  the  Ganges  and  the  right  of 
the  Jumna  below  Calpi.  In  Gude  we  h'old  nothing  beyond  ten  miles 
from  Lucknow,  except  along  the  line  of  the  Cawnpore  road.  The 
country  does  not  seem  in  the  least  degree  settled. 

We  have  taken  Bareilly,  and  reconquered  all  the  north  of  Rohilkund. 

I  think  that  that  province  will  settle  down.     By  all  accounts  the  Hindus 

are  in  our  favour,  for  there  the  Mohammedans  showed  the  cloven  foot. 

Bundelcund  is  in  the  hands  of  the  insurgents.     Central  India  is  also  a 

vcL,  II. — 17 


258  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

good  deal  disturbed.  There  are  signs  of  miscliief  brewing  in  Nagpore. 
But  European  troops  are  quite  unequal  to  holding  the  country  unaided. 
We  have  sixty  thousand  Punjabi  troops  of  various  kinds  under  arms,  up- 
wards of  twenty  thousand  of  whom  are  in  Hindustan.  But  these  are  in- 
adequate for  the  subjection  of  the  country,  if  we  are  to  wage  a  war  of  ex- 
termination. 

But  strong  measures  appear  to  be  the  order  of  the  day.  Everybody 
calls  out  for  war  to  the  knife,  never  seeming  to  see  that  we  really  have 
not  the  means  of  carrying  out  such  a  policy.  If  some  change  is  not 
made,  we  may  have  the  present  state  of  affairs  for  a  year  or  so  ;  perhaps 
more.  No  mutineer  ever  surrenders  ;  for  directly  he  is  caught,  he  is 
shot  or  hanged.  Naturally  enough,  all  desire  to  die  fighting.  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  if  we  held  out  hopes  of  personal  security  to  the  least 
guilty  of  the  mutineers,  they  would  come  in,  give  up  their  arms,  and  go 
to  their  homes.  These,  we  might  hereafter  keep  under  police  surveil- 
lance. In  the  meantime,  we  should  have  breathing  time  to  hunt  the  des- 
peradoes, the  murderers  of  our  women  and  children.  But  so  long  as 
all  are  classed  under  one  head,  all  will  hold  together  and  resist  to  the 
death.  I  feel  very  anxious  on  this  subject,  for  we  are  very  weak  all  over 
the  country,  and  not  the  least  so  even  in  the  Punjab.  We  have  barely 
ten  thousand  Europeans  from  the  banks  of  the  Jumna,  including  Delhi, 
westwards,  and  Peshawur  takes  a  large  slice  out  of  these.  We  have  full 
eighteen  thousand  Hindustani  soldiers  to  watch,  so  that  we  are  literally 
tied  by  the  leg.  If  any  row  broke  out  we  should  find  it  difficult  to  move 
fifteen  hundred  men.  There  is  danger  also  that  the  Punjabis  may  see 
our  weakness,  and  their  opportunity,  and  then  what  would  become  of  us  ? 

In  the  meantime,  war  and  general  insecurity  is  becoming  the  normal 
state  of  the  country.  If  matters  do  not  settle  down  of  themselves — for 
we  shall  certainly  not  do  it  ourselves — England  must  send  out  twenty 
thousand  European  soldiers  per  annum  to  keep  up  eighty  thousand  men 
in  India.  Sunstroke,  fever,  dysentery,  and  fatigue  will  otherwise  soon 
make  an  end  of  our  armies. 

The  enemy  had  at  length  been  driven  out  of  Rohilkund,  but  they 
had  not  been  destroyed  as  a  military  force.  They  had  given  the 
slip  twice  over  to  Sir  Colin  Campbell,  and  had  fallen  back  into 
Oude  to  await  the  opening  of  a  new  campaign — a  campaign  which 
could  not  begin  till  the  cool  weather  came.  Meanwhile,  they  were 
amusing  themselves  by  making  raids  across  the  Rohilkund  border, 
carrying  fire  and  sword  into. the  peaceable  villages,  and  were  back 
again  before  our  troops  could  come  to  the  rescue.  In  Oude  itself 
we  held  '  little  beyond  the  reach  of  our  guns  ;  '  and,  worse  still, 
early  in  June,  Gwalior,  one  of  the  strongest  forts  in  India,  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  rebels,  while  the  Maharaja  had  to  fly  for  his  life. 
Sir  John  Lawrence  knew  what  this  implied,  and  he  lost  no  time  in 
pressing  upon  Sir  Colin  Campbell  the  importance  of  recovering  it 


1857-58  JOHN   LAWRENCE   AS  A  CONQUEROR.  259 

instantly  and  at  any  cost,  of  calling  for  large  reinforcements  from 
England,  and  of  once  more  begging  the  Government  to  build  a 
golden  bridge  for  the  more  innocent  of  our  enemies. 

If  Sir  Hugh  Rose  be  unable  to  attack  and  expel  the  mutineers,  we 
may  anticipate  a  general  insurrection  in  that  country,  which  will  proba- 
bly extend  through  Central  India.  As  Government  will  not  hear  of  an 
amnesty  for  any  of  the  mutineers,  I  think  we  should  prepare  for  a  cam- 
paign on  an  extensive  scale  in  the  cold  weather.  It  is  essential  to  us 
that  we  should  either  condone  the  offences  of  the  least  guilty  of  the  muti- 
neers, or  destroy  them.  To  defeat  them  without  destroying  them,  will 
not  bring  peace  or  security.  They  have  nowhere  to  fly  to.  They  must 
obtain  terms,  or  fight  it  out  with  us.  I  have  always  thought  that  the 
advance  on  Lucknow,  or,  at  any  rate,  after  we  had  expelled  them  from 
that  city,  was  the  time  to  admit  such  as  were  willing,  exclusive  of  the 
cold-blooded  murderers,  to  terms.  It  will  now  be  more  difficult  to  bring 
them  to  terms,  because  the  severity  of  the  season  prevents  our  exerting 
a  sufficient  pressure  on  them. 

Still  I  would  counsel  that  an  amnesty  be  offered  to  all  but  the  worst 
offenders.  Whether  it  be  accepted  or  not  it  will  do  good  ;  for  even  if 
refused,  it  will  gradually  breed  disunion  and  insecurity  among  the 
mutineers.  I  feel  however  persuaded  that  by  a  little  management, 
thousands  would  give  up  their  weapons,  and  return  to  their  homes.  At 
first,  only  a  few  might  surrender,  but  as  others  saw  that  they  were  fairly 
treated,  they  would  also  come  in.  Whatever  policy,  however,  is  pursued 
as  regards  the  treatment  of  the  mutineers,  I  think  it  would  be  well  to 
write  urgently  to  England,  so  as  to  get  out  as  large  a  body  of  Cavalry 
as  possible.  I  look  on  it  that  every  month  this  war  lasts,  it  is  a  serious 
blow  to  our  prestige  and  power  in  India,  and  even  in  Europe.  No  man 
can  foresee  indeed  what  may  happen.  By  the  cold  weather,  we  may 
have  a  war  on  this  frontier.  The  army  of  the  Maharaja  of  Kashmere  is 
by  no  means  in  a  satisfactory  state,  and  we  may  have  an  outbreak  there. 
He  has  by  no  means  the  ability  and  prestige  of  his  father.  A  considera- 
ble number  of  our  mutineers  have  taken  refuge  in  his  border  villages, 
and  he  is  unwilling  or  afraid  to  seize  and  give  them  up.  ...  I  wish 
indeed  that  I  could  have  met  you.  Hitherto  it  would  not  have  been 
politic  for  me  to  have  left  the  Punjab,  even  for  a  few  days.  I  have  not 
been  well  lately.  Plenty  of  work  and  the  heat  in  camp  has  told  on  me. 
If  better,  I  shall  go  down  in  July  when  the  rain  has  fallen,  and  possibly 
might  manage  to  meet  you.  But  my  presence  in  the  country,  just  now, 
and  indeed  while  the  struggle  lasts,  is  of  importance. 

What  Sir  John  Lawrence  urged  thus  forcibly  on  the  Commander- 
in-Chief,  he  was  not  the  man  to  refrain  from  urging  in  equally  for- 
cible terms  on  the  Governor-General  himself  : — 

Should  we  not  recover  Gwalior  very  soon,  its  loss  will  scarcely  fail  to 
have  an  injurious  effect  on  our  interests.     The  country  is  very  strong, 


26o  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

and  the  fort  one  of  \he  most  formidable  fortresses  in  India.  Its  loss 
may  lead  indeed  to  a  general  insurrection  in  Central  India.  Under  any 
circumstances  it  would  appear  to  me  politic  10  prepare  for  a  campaign 
on  a  large  scale  next  cold  weather.  .  .  .  Lastly,  I  would  again  venture 
to  recommend  that  some  mercy  should  be  extended  to  the  mutineers  of 
those  corps  which  did  not  murder  our  countrymen  and  countrywomen. 
1  feel  persuaded  myself  that  if  this  be  done,  and  if  those  that  tirst  sur- 
render are  sent  in  safety  to  their  homes,  good  results  must  arise. 

I  know  how  unpopular  such  a  policy  will  prove,  but  I  know  also  how 
essentially  necessary  it  is  if  we  desire  to  put  an  end  to  the  contest,  and 
pacify  the  country.  If  the  promise  of  their  lives,  and  safe  return  to  their 
homes,  do  not  bring  in  any  of  the  mutineers,  after  all,  we  are  in  no  worse 
a  position  than  at  present.  Indeed,  I  would  urge  that  even  then  we  are 
in  a  better  one.  We  shall  show  the  world  that  we  have  some  feelings 
of  mercy.  We  shall  show  many  of  the  mutineers  that  their  condition  is 
not  altogether  desperate.  Our  policy  will  sow  dissension  and  distrust 
among  our  enemies,  and  lessen  therefore  both  the  means  and  the  in- 
ducement to  resist  to  the  death. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  wrote  in  much  the  same  strain  to  Meredith 
Townshend,  the  able  editor  of  the  '  Friend  of  India,'  a  paper  which, 
in  his  time  and  in  that  of  his  predecessor,  John  Marshman,  and  of 
his  successor.  Dr.  George  Smith,  stood,  in  point  of  information,  of 
abihty,  and  of  independence,  at  the  head  of  Anglo-Indian  journal- 
ism ;  and  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  he  obtained  the 
sympathy  and  support  which  he  asked.  But  he  was  also  deter- 
mined, as  far  as  possible,  to  bring  his  influence  to  bear  on  the  Home 
Government  as  well  ;  and  with  this  view,  on  June  16  he  wrote 
letters  to  Lord  Dalhousie,  who  had  just  returned  from  Malta  to 
England,  and  to  Lord  Stanley,  who  had  lately  become  President  of 
the  Board  of  Control.  The  letter  to  Lord  Dalhousie  is  the  last 
which  he  wrote  to  him,  and  is  characteristic  in  every  line  of  it. 
That  to  Lord  Stanley  is  the  first  of  a  remarkable  series  of  letters, 
which  I  regret  that  I  have  not  room  to  quote  in  full. 

Murri  :  June  16,  1858. 

'Sly  dear  Lord  Dalhousie, — I  have  not  written  to  you  much  since  this 
Mutiny  broke  out  ;  for  I  have  had  much  to  do,  and  I  knew  also  that  you 
were  suffering.  I  think,  however,  that  we  are  now  at  a  stage  in  the 
crisis,  when  I  must  not  only  write,  but  ask  for  the  aid  of  your  still  potent 
voice. 

We  are,  I  conceive,  in  great  difficulties  in  India,  and  I  do  not  think 
that  our  position  is,  by  any  means,  known  or  appreciated  at  home. 
England  has  done  much  for  us,  but  she  should  do  more,  if  we  are  to 
recover  our  lost  prestige  and  diminished  power.     Her  delay  in  sending 


1857-58        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   A   PACIFICATOR.  261 

out  reinforcements  in  the  first  instance  was  well-nijjli  fatal.  As  it  was, 
it  did  us  immense  harm.  It  caused  thousands  to  become  compromised, 
who  would  otherwise  have  remained  true.  We  have  never  recovered 
this  mistake,  and  the  policy  which  has  hitherto  been  pursued  has  enhanced 
our  difficulties.  All  the  bad  passions  of  our  nature  have  been  excited. 
It  has  been  a  war  of  extermination  against  mutineers,  and,  in  many 
instances,  even  against  insurgents.  It  has  become,  to  some  extent,  a 
war  of  races.  The  consequence  has  been  that  we  have  an  uphill  part 
to  play  ;  a  part  which,  I  may  add,  is  beyond  our  resources  and  our 
power.  While  denouncing  vengeance  on  our  enemies,  we  have  let  them 
slip  through  our  hands  on  every  occasion.  ...  At  Delhi  we  had  not 
the  means  of  punishing  them.  At  other  places  we  have  allowed  them 
to  escape.  It  has  become  a  great  guerilla  war.  East  of  the  Jumna  we 
are  nowhere  secure  beyond  the  range  of  our  guns.  Slowly  we  march 
our  heavy  Columns  after  the  mutineers  ;  as  we  come  up,  they  disperse 
and  assemble  at  another  point.  Each  expedition  costs  us  the  lives  of 
many  brave  men  from  exposure.  We  might  as  well  set  bulldogs  to  run 
down  foxes  as  European  soldiers  to  catch  Hindustanis.  We  require 
native  troops  for  the  purpose,  and  we  have  none  to  speak  of,  except 
Punjabis.  Old  and  new  ones  together,  we  have  already  59,000  on  my 
rolls,  and  more  than  60,000  if  we  count  all  classes.  More  are  required, 
but  to  raise  more  would  be  very  dangerous. 

We  want  more  European  troops  from  England  ;  a  good  body  of  real 
light  Cavalry.  We  require  a  thorough  change  of  policy.  We  want  a 
discriminativ^e  amnesty  ;  that  is  to  say,  an  amnesty  which,  excepting  all 
cold-blooded  murderers,  would  allow  all  others  to  go  and  live  at  their 
homes  in  peace,  provided  they  obeyed  the  laws.  We  require  also  a  man 
at  the  head  of  affairs  with  real  vigour  and  promptitude,  a  man  who 
can  see  what  is  to  be  done  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and,  seeing  it,  will 
have  his  own  way.  If  a  goodly  body  of  troops  be  sent  out  by  October 
next,  and  a  proper  system  of  tactics  be  introduced,  coupled  with  a  policy 
of  vigour,  combined  with  consideration,  we  shall  yet  do  well.  Otherwise 
it  is  difficult  to  foresee  what  may  not  occur,  and  I  am  quite  certain  that 
we  shall  not  see  the  end  of  this  rebellion  for  several  years.  People  have 
no  idea  of  our  real  position.  Now  merely  as  a  question  of  finance,  it  is 
far  better  to  spend  money  now,  and  by  a  vigorous  effort  to  beat  down 
opposition,  than  allow  it  to  extend  over  a  series  of  years. 

I  am  a  good  deal  the  worse  for  continuous  and  hard  work.  I  had 
arranged  to  go  home  last  February,  but  this  v^'as  rendered  impossible  by 
the  Mutiny.  I  am  very  anxious,  however,  to  get  away,  and  nothing  but 
a  sense  of  honour  induces  me  to  remain.  Directly  I  can  see  an  opening 
I  siiall  go  home.  It  is  little  use  my  writing  to  people  in  power  in  Eng- 
land. There  I  possess  no  influence.  You,  my  Lord,  are  differently 
situated  ;  you  have  done  great  things  for  India.  By  coming  forward 
now,  and  inducing  the  Ministry  to  act  decidedly,  you  may  be  instrumental 
in  saving  this  great  Empire  to  England.  In  one  word,  we  want  more 
European  soldiers  in  India,  and — a  dictator. 


262  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

The  resignation  of  Lord  EUenborough,  '  a  new,  inauspicious 
element,'  as  Prince  Albert  had  aptly  called  him,  in  the  Derby 
administration,  after  the  publication  of  his  sweeping  censure  of  the 
Oude  Proclamation,  had  saved  the  Cabinet  of  which  he  had  been  a 
member,  and  had  brought  into  his  place  a  man  who,  by  his  sound 
judgment,  by  his  '  statesmanlike  insight  into  character  and  race,' 
and  by  his  interest  in  India,  stimulated,  but  not  first  arouse'd,  by 
his  travels  there  in  1852,  seemed  well  fitted  to  preside  over  its 
destinies  while  it  was  passing  from  the  nominal  sway  of  the  Com- 
pany to  that  of  the  Crown,  and  to  make  a  solid  contribution  towards 
the  settlement  of  the  great  questions — military,  political,  and 
religious — which  had  been  raised  by  the  Mutiny.  We  have  seen, 
in  an  earlier  chapter,  how,  by  his  visit  to  Lahore,  and  by  his  journey 
along  the  Derajat  frontier.  Lord  Stanley  had  made  the  acquaintance 
and  had  come  to  appreciate  the  characters  of  both  the  Lawrences. 
And  it  was  fortunate  for  England  and  for  India  that,  at  this  critical 
juncture,  the  abounding  knowledge  of  India  possessed  by  Sir  John 
Lawrence  was  placed  at  the  disposal  of  Lord  Stanley,  and  welcomed 
by  him,  as  such  knowledge  will  always  be  welcomed  by  a  true 
statesman. 

Murri  :  June  16,  1858. 
My  dear  Lord  Stanley, — I  do  not  think  that  I  have  ever  written  you  a 
line,  since  I  had  the  pleasure  of  making  your  acquaintance  at  Lahore. 
Our  paths  have  lain  in  such  different  directions,  and  we  have  both  been 
so  fully  employed,  that  little  time  or  occasion  for  communication  has  ex- 
isted. We  are  now,  however,  passing  through  a  great  crisis  in  India, 
and  on  its  proper  management  will,  in  a  great  measure,  depend  not  only 
the  future  destinies  of  this  great  appanage  of  England,  but  the  very 
security  of  her  sons  and  daughters  in  India.  We  are  now  by  no  means 
progressing  out  here  in  the  satisfactory  manner  people  seem  to  think  in 
England. 

Up  to  the  fall  of  Delhi,  it  was  a  struggle  for  existence.  After  that 
event  matters  greatly  improved.  It  gave  indeed  a  deadly  blow  to  the 
Mutiny.  It  was  also  followed  up  with  some  vigour.  A  Division  fol- 
lowed up  the  enemy,  and  gave  them  little  rest.  Brigades  scoured  the 
country,  and,  in  many  places,  reduced  the  people  to  obedience.  The 
large  reinforcements  which  landed  from  England  proved  to  the  muti- 
neers and  insurgents  that  English  soldiers  were  forthcoming.  The  de- 
lay, however,  in  attacking  Lucknow  ;  the  escape  of  the  great  body  of  the 
mutineers  from  that  city  ;  and  their,  I  may  say,  general  escape  on  every 
occasion,  when  we  might  have  cut  up  large  bodies  of  them,  and  the 
policy  which  has  been  laid  down,  have  operated  for  much  mischief.  We 
are  now,  I  believe,  in  a  worse  condition  than  we  have  yet  been  since  the 
fall  of  Delhi.     The  mutineers  have  now  learnt  how  to  litrht  us  to  advan- 


1857-58         JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  263 

tag-e.  They  spread  themselves  over  the  country,  and  coerce  and  over- 
awe the  people.  They  plunder  and  murder  our  friends,  and  collect,  the 
revenue.  As  we  advance  in  one  direction,  they  make  for  another.  In 
the  meantime  the  climate  is  more  deadly  than  the  enemy.  It  kills  our 
European  soldiers  by  hundreds  and  thousands.  By  the  time  the  cold 
weather  arrives,  the  season  for  active  military  operations,  we  shall  have 
no  sufficient  body  of  soldiers  to  take  the  field.  We  have  Gude  to  recon- 
quer. In  that  province  we  hold  nothing  beyond  the  range  of  our  guns 
at  Lucknow.  Gwalior  has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  mutineers  with,  I 
fear,  a  couple  of  million  of  treasure.  Unless  we  can  retake  it,  which  is 
at  least  problematical,  a  general  insurrection,  throughout  the  Mahratta 
states,  may  be  anticipated.  Central  India  is  a  strong  country,  difficult 
for  military  operations  ;  and,  with  plenty  ot  money,  soldiers  can  be  pro- 
cured in  any  numbers.  We  have  re-occupied  Rohilkund,  but  that  prov- 
ince, the  Gangetic  Doab,  Benares  and  Behar,  are  overrun  by  large  bands 
of  guerillas.  The  people  are  rapidly  becoming  accustomed  to  war  and 
rapine  ;  in  fact,  falling  back  into  the  old  state  in  which  they  were  plunged 
before  we  became  the  supreme  power  in  India.  In  England  80,000  or 
100,000  of  our  troops  appear  a  prodigious  force,  but  when  quotas  are 
told  off  for  all  parts  of  India,  such  a  body  of  soldiers  is,  really,  very 
small.  Out  of  these,  moreover,  large  deductions  for  casualties  must  be 
made.  Before,  perhaps,  a  single  regiment  landed  from  England  in  1S57, 
we  must  have  been  from  8,000  to  10,000  men  below  our  complement. 
Since  then,  several  thousands  have  died,  and  still  more  have  been  dis- 
abled. I  should  doubt  much  if  50,000  English  troops  are,  at  this  moment, 
available. 

We  are  all  quiet  in  the  Punjab,  and  even  down  to  the  banks  of  the 
Jumna.  But,  day  by  day,  the  scenes  in  Hindustan  must  be  producing 
their  effects.  Contrary  to  sound  policy,  but  driven  by  the  sheer  neces- 
sity of  our  position,  I  have  raised  large  bodies  of  Punjabi  soldiers,  and 
have  still  to  raise  more.  I  have  57,000  of  these  troops  on  my  rolls.  We 
have  only  Punjabi  troops  with  which  to  hold  the  country  and  aid  in  re- 
conquering Hindustan.  These  troops  have  behaved  admirably  hitherto. 
But  it  is  not  in  human  nature  that  they  should  not  see  of  how  much  im- 
portance they  are  to  us,  how  much  the  success  of  the  present  struggle 
depends  on  them.     It  is  not  wise,  it  is  not  politic  that  this  should  go  on. 

I  would  also  say  a  few  words  on  the  policy  which  has  hitherto  pre- 
vailed. It  has  all  along  appeared  to  me  that  the  press,  the  European 
society,  and  the  Government  have  taken  too  high  a  line.  With  the  ma- 
jority of  Englishmen  the  cry  has  been,  '  War  to  the  knife,'  totally  forget- 
ting that  such  a  policy  requires  proportionate  power.  Now  it  seems  to 
me  that,  setting  aside  all  considerations  of  mercy  and  humanity,  we  have 
not  the  means  of  enforcing  such  a  policy.  If  every  insurgent,  or  even 
every  mutineer,  is  to  be  put  to  death,  or  transported  beyond  the  seas,  we 
shall  require  200,000  European  soldiers,  and,  even  then,  we  shall  not 
put  down  all  opposition  in  half  a  dozen  years.  Is  England  prepared  to 
send  out  these  troops  ?     Is  England   prepared   to  send  out  from  twenty 


264  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

to  thirty  thousand  troops  annually  to  supply  casualties  ?  If  she  is  not, 
it  behoves  you  all  to  meet  the  difficulty  fairly,  and  to  decide  what  ought 
to  be  done.  Our  prestige  is  gone  !  Our  power  literally  slipping  away. 
In  attempting  to  compass  an  impracticable  policy  we  are  endangering 
our  very  Empire  in  the  East.  I  am  no  advocate  for  forgiving  the  mur- 
ilcrcrs  of  our  women  and  children.  I  would  hunt  all  such  wretches 
down.  But,  to  do  this  effectually,  we  must  discriminate  between  the 
mutineers.  At  present,  every  man  who  is  caught  is  hanged  or  shot. 
Who  will  surrender  under  such  circumstances  ?  Thus  all  classes  of 
mutineers  or  insurgents  are  bound  together  by  the  very  desperation  of 
their  position.  When  we  advanced  on  Lucknow  with  our  large  and  effi- 
cient force,  and  with  our  tremendous  Artillery,  we  should  have  offered 
terms  to  all  but  the  cold-blooded  murderers.  Entrenched  behind  their 
fortifications,  few  would  have  then  surrendered.  But  our  offers  would 
have  become  well  known,  and  would  have  led  to  discussion  and  dissen- 
sion and  insecurity.  When  the  insurgents  had  once  been  driven  out  of 
Lucknow,  our  proclamations  would  have  begun  to  bear  fruit,  and  pro- 
vided only  that  those  who  came  in  first  were  treated  leniently,  more 
W'ould  have  followed.  By  this  time,  thousands  of  men  now  in  arms  would 
probably  be  sitting  down  quietly  in  their  villages.  We  have  missed  a 
good  opportunity,  and  have  thereby  aggravated  our  difficulties. 

But  even  now  it  is  not  too  late.  While  doing  all  we  can  to  separate 
the  less  guilty  from  the  desperadoes,  we  must  also  be  in  a  position  to 
deal  heavy  and  rapid  blows  on  all  those  who  continue  in  arms.  Our 
offers  of  life  and  personal  security  will  bear  fruit  most  abundantly  when 
backed  by  real  power.  In  the  one  hand  we  should  hold  out  the  olive 
branch,  and  with  the  other  deal  destruction.  To  enable  us  to  do  this, 
England  should  send  out  every  man  that  can  be  spared.  All  should  be 
out  here  early  in  October.  We  are  in  great  want  of  good  light  cavalry. 
Two  or  three  thousand  Yeomanry  selected  for  the  especial  work,  and 
coming  out  here  for  two  or  three  years'  service  would  prove  invaluable. 
Our  Heavy  English  Cavalry,  except  in  a  stand-up  fight,  are  nearly  use- 
less. With  a  large  and  efficient  European  force,  we  can  then  raise  any 
number  of  native  troops.  Without  a  considerable  body  of  sucli  auxiliaries, 
we  can  indeed  neitlier  reconquer  the  country  nor  hold  it  if  reconquered. 
W^ith  a  sufficient  European  army,  such  troops,  properly  disciplined  and 
commanded,  would  prove  perfectly  innocuous.  Above  all,  we  require 
for  this  purpose  the  best  man  whom  England  can  provide,  and  this  man 
should  be  invested  with  unlimited  power.  Ability,  force  of  character, 
knowledge,  are  all  essential  to  bring  matters  to  a  successful  issue. 

Pray  do  not  suppose  that  there  is  any  personal  motive  in  what  I  have 
said.  I  have  been,  hitherto,  contented  to  hold  my  own  post,  and  do  my 
duty  to  the  best  of  my  ability.  I  neither  look  for,  nor  desire,  nor  expect 
anything  for  myself.  I  have  served  now  twenty-nine  years  in  India.  I 
have  had  my  share  of  work.  My  health  is  much  shaken,  and  my  sole 
desire  is  to  return  home  and  settle  down  among  my  children.  I  have 
no  aspirations  for  employment  in  India,  but  when  I  retire  I  should  like 


1857-58        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  265 

to  do  so  with  honour.  I  should  Hke  to  do  it  when  I  saw  that  real  danj^er 
was  over.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  go  home  last  February.  But 
this  was  impossible.     My  present  wish  is  to  get  off  next  February. 

I  make  no  apologies  for  this  long  letter.  One  in  your  position  can  do 
much.  I  can  do  little  but  give  you  a  true  account  of  affairs.  I  do  not 
ask  you  to  take  for  granted  all  I  say.  Test  it  by  your  own  sources  of 
information.  Compare  what  I  say  with  what  others  say,  with  what  you 
can  glean  from  the  public  prints.  Even  supposing  that  I  have  over- 
estimated difficulties,  no  reasonable  man,  who  is  behind  the  scenes,  can 
deny  that  our  position  is,  in  a  high  degree,  precarious  and  dangerous. 
Even  as  a  matter  of  economy,  it  is  better  to  make  a  great  effort  now  to 
trample  down  rebellion  than  to  allow  it  to  continue  for  years.  Every 
day  the  war  lasts  is  fraught  with  dangers,  many  of  which  it  is  difficult 
even  to  foresee.  We  may  have  a  war  in  Europe.  We  may  have  a  com- 
motion in  Central  Asia.  The  changes  which  the  death  of  Ameer  Dost 
Mohammed  Khan  would  cause  at  Cabul  and  Khorassan  must  be  great. 
They  may'lead  to  an  embroglio  along  our  western  border.  The  con- 
tinuous struggle  in  which  we  are  engaged  may  lead  to  combinations 
among  the  different  powerful  chiefs  in  the  country.  They  have  seen 
the  Maharaja  of  Gwalior  driven  in  disgrace  from  his  own  kingdom. 
They  have  no  security  that  the  demoralisation  will  not  extend  to  their 
own  troops.  They  may  consider  that  it  is  easier  to  swim  with  the  stream 
than  to  struggle  against  the  torrent.  I  perceive  the  new  Maharaja  of 
Kashmere  is  by  no  means  at  ease,  and  that  his  troops  are  somewhat 
excited.  Every  Poorbea  soldier  who  finds  an  asylum  in  the  Jummoo 
border  propagates  lies  against  us.  We  have  twelve  thousand  of  these 
soldiers  unarmed,  many  of  them  encamped  under  range  of  our  guns. 
The  terrors  of  transportation,  the  uncertainty  of  their  ultimate  fate,  the 
feeling  of  their  evil  intentions,  all  render  them  right  desperate.  They 
cannot  but  believe  that  we  shall  ultimately  destroy  them.  Hence  they 
leave  no  stone  unturned  to  do  us  all  the  harm  they  can.  I  ask  you  to 
reflect  how  greatly  embarrassed  we  must  be,  with  such  men  on  our 
hands  ;  how  desperately  shackled  we  must  be  in  the  event  of  insurrection 
or  invasion. 

I  will  say  no  more.  I  appeal  to  your  feelings  as  an  Englishman  and 
a  patriot  to  come  forward  and  aid  us  in  our  difficulties.  England  may 
not  otherwise  awake  before  it  is  too  late. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  influence  which  such  a  letter 
would  have  upon  a  statesman  like  Lord'  Stanley.  It  described 
the  situation  exactly  as  it  was,  not  as  it  ought  to  be,  or  as  Govern- 
ment might  well  wish  that  it  might  be.  The  picture  was  worked  in 
in  gloomy  colours  ;  but  only  with  the  hope  that  when  they  had 
produced  the  effect  intended,  and  aroused  all  concerned  to  a  united 
effort,  they  might  be  painted  out  by  other  and  brighter  tints. 

That  the  colours  were  by  no  means  too  dark  I  may  prove  by 


266  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

quoting  one  of  many  letters  written  from  the  centre  of  operations 
to  Sir  John  Lawrence,  and  by  a  man  who  was  not  likely  to  take  a 
sombre  view  unless  facts  required  it. 

I  am  sorry  to  say  (writes  General  Mansfield  from  Futtehguhr  on  May 
30),  that  Government  as  yet  makes  no  sign  as  regards  dealing  largely 
with  the  Sepoy  question.  It  is  to  me  quite  inexplicable.  We  moved 
strongly  immediately  after  the  fall  of  Lucknow.  The  Military  Secretary 
of  the  Governor-General  came  up  to  confer;  Sir  Colin  afterwards  went 
down  to  Allahabad.  But  still  the  Governor-General  does  not  move.  I 
have  seen  a  copy  of  the  instructions  sent  down  to  the  Commissioner  of 
Goruckpore,  respecting  pardon  being  granted  to  certain  men,  but  they 
are  so  minute,  and  so  full  of  petty  restrictions,  that  no  mortal  man  can 
possibly  give  them  practical  execution.  It  is  really  very  sad,  and  adds 
to  our  difficulties  every  day.  I  see  no  end  to  the  war  on  these  terms, 
which  solder  up  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  for  ever  between  the 
military  mutiny  and  the  territorial  insurrection.  I  believe  that  if  the 
moment  of  the  success  of  Lucknow  had  been  happily  turned  to  account, 
we  should  have  got  over  more  than  half  our  difficulties.  As  it  is,  the 
best  opportunity  for  an  amnesty  ever  known  was  lost,  and  we  are  en- 
gaged in  a  guerilla  war,  and  of  a  very  serious  description,  which  will 
probably  last  for  years.  .  .  .  The  bulk  of  Sir  Hugh  Rose's  force  goes  to 
Gwalior  immediately,  leaving  garrisons  at  Jhansi  and  Calpi.  The  state 
of  Oude  is  as  bad  as  it  can  be.  It  must  be  reduced  by  the  action  of  a 
dozen  Columns  at  the  same  time.  Where  they  are  to  be  found,  I  am 
sure  no  man  can  say.  I  hope  they  will  turn  up.  In  the  meantime  there 
is  a  cry  for  help  and  troops  from  all  sides,  and  the  districts  about  Arrah, 
&c.,  are  in  a  regular  state  of  war,  Lugard,  who  is  there,  cries  lustily  for 
help  which  we  cannot  give.  It  will  all  come  right  in  time,  but  we  must 
have  time,  and  we  must  rest  the  troops.  The  mortality  of  late  has  in- 
creased very  much,  and  in  some  corps  has  been  almost  alarming.  But 
it  must  be  so  in  such  weather  as  we  now  have.  We  go  to  Allahabad 
immediately. 

Happily,  when  things  were  at  their  worst  they  began  to  mend. 
Gwalior,  which  had  been  lost  to  us  by  a  bold  stroke  on  the  part  of 
the  mutineers,  was  recovered,  before  the  end  of  the  month,  by  a  still 
bolder  on  the  part  of  Sir  Hugh  Rose  ;  and  with  its  recovery  and 
the  brilliant  pursuit  of  the  mutineers  by  Robert  Napier,  passed 
away  the  immediate  danger  of  a  rising  among  the  Mahratta  states. 
Better  still,  Government  at  length  did  give  some  signs  of  *  dealing 
largely  with  the  Sepoy  question,'  and  in  the  direction  so  long  advo- 
cated by  Sir  John  Lawrence. 

There  were  in  the  Punjab  some  15,000  disarmed  Sepoys,  men 
equally  suspecting  and  suspected,  a  source  of  danger  to  every  Sta- 
tion in  which  they  were  to  be  found,  and  altogether  forming  a  grave 


1857-5S         JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  267 

addition  to  the  anxieties  of  men  who  were  already  overburdened. 
There  were  some  who  recommended  that  when  the  Mutiny  was 
over,  the  Sepoys  should  be  restored,  with  few  exceptions,  to  their 
former  position  ;  a  step  dangerous  enough  whenever  and  however 
it  should  be  carried  out,  and,  meanwhile,  involving  an  indefinite 
prolongation  of  anxiety  and  misgiving.  Others  were  for  indis- 
criminate banishment.  But  the  just  and  merciful,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  prudent  course  advocated  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  won  the  day. 
Convinced  that  many  of  the  Sepoys  were  innocent  or  had  been 
hurried  away  by  the  'madness  of  the  moment,'  he  had  done  what 
he  could  to  make  their  position  since  disarmament  less  intolerable. 
In  particular,  knowing  the  resistance  and  therefore  the  bloodshed 
which  it  would  occasion,  he  had  opposed  the  proposition  of  Cotton 
to  employ  the  Sepoys  at  Peshawur  in  forced  labour  on  the  public 
roads,  and  he  opposed  still  more  strenuously  the  proposition  of  the 
Lahore  authorities  to  confine  the  Sepoys  of  the  Mean  Meer  canton- 
ment, as  though  they  were  all  convicted  criminals,  in  the  central 
jail.  AVhatever  their  intentions  towards  us,  each  disarmed  Sepoy 
must  have  died  a  hundred  deaths  in  imagination  during  the  long 
months  which  had  passed  since  disarmament.  We  have  seen  how, 
at  a  very  early  period  of  the  Mutiny,  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  begged 
Lord  Canning  to  allow  the  better  disposed  among  the  Sepoys  to  be 
sent  to  their  homes,  and  leave  was  now  at  last  given  him  to  do  as 
he  desired.  All  details  were  left  to  him,  and  his  plan  was  as  simple 
as  it  was  safe.  Three  parties  of  twenty  disarmed  men  set  out  each 
day  from  each  of  three  stations,  and  having  been  conducted  by  an 
armed  escort  at  the  rate  of  ten  miles  a  day,  and  by  three  different 
routes,  towards  the  frontier  nearest  to  their  respective  provinces, 
were  allowed  to  make  their  way  thence,  by  themselves,  to  their 
homes.'  All  combination  was  thus  rendered  impossible.  A  slight 
outbreak  of  the  hitherto  faithful  loth  infantry  at  Dera  Ghazi  Khan 
and  a  more  serious  one  of  the  67th  and  69th  at  IMooltan — both  of 
them  suppressed  without  difiiculty — convinced  Sir  John  Lawrence 
that  the  homeward  movement  was  not  less  but  more  desirable  than 
it  had  seemed  before.  And  thus,  within  a  few  weeks,  the  Punjab 
was  cleared,  without  mishap,  of  15,000  men,  each  one  of  whom 
might  have  proved,  in  combination  with  others,  a  still  formidable 
foe,  but  was  now  to  become,  with  very  few  exceptions,  a  peaceful 
cultivator  of  the  ground,  or  to  rejoin  our  service  in  the  guise  of  a 
policeman. 

'  Cave  Browne's  Punjab  and  Deliti,  vol.  ii.  p.  255. 


26S  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

Some  few  regiments,  which  had  given  no  cause  of  complaint,  and 
had  been  disarmed  simply  as  a  matter  of  precaution,  were  exempted 
from  the  general  sentence,  and  received  back  their  arms  with  hon- 
our. Such  were  the  5 9th  Native  Infantry  whom  Nicholson,  when 
he  disarmed  them  at  Umritsur,  had  himself  begged  his  chief  to 
treat  with  consideration  as  soon  as  the  Mutiny  should  be  over. 
Such,  too,  was  the  55th  at  Rawul  Pindi,  whom  Sir  John  Lawrence 
had  himself  induced,  in  spite  of  their  temporary  panic,  to  lay  down 
their  arms,  and  in  whom  therefore  he  felt  something  of  the  personal 
interest  of  a  preserver.  And  such,  once  more,  were  the  detach- 
ments of  various  mutinous  regiments,  men  who  had  stood  firm 
Avhen  their  comrades  bad  risen  against  us,  had  saved  the  treasure 
committed  to  them,  and  protected  the  lives  of  their  officers  or  their 
officers'  wives  and  children  at  the  risk  of  their  own.  These  detach- 
ments were,  on  Sir  John  Lawrence's  recommendation,  formed  into 
a  regiment  of  Irregulars,  which  was  to  be  called  by  the  proud  name 
of  the  Wafadar  Pitltan,  or  '  Faithful  regiment.' 

Other  rewards  were  given,  and  that  with  no  niggard  hand,  to  the 
great  chieftains  of  Puttiala  and  Jheend,  of  Nabha  and  Kuppur- 
thalla,  who  had  been  'faithful  among  the  faithless,'  and  had  come 
forward  to  our  support  when  our  prospects  were  at  their  darkest. 
Here,  too.  Sir  John  Lawrence  might  justly  feel  that  it  was  his  policy 
which  had  enabled  them  to  rally  to  our  side.  For  it  was  he  who 
had  urged  upon  General  Anson  an  immediate  advance  upon  Delhi 
at  a  time  when  every  leading  officer  at  Head-quarters  was  for  delay 
or  circumspection  ;  and,  had  his  representations  not  been  successful, 
the  whole  country  between  the  Jumna  and  the  Sutlej  would  have 
risen  and  have  carried  the  chiefs,  who  had  now  so  loyally  served 
us,  to  the  other  side.  From  the  moment  that  Delhi  fell  he  had  not 
ceased  to  urge  upon  the  Supreme  Government  the  importance  of 
rewarding  these  chiefs  at  once,  and  in  that  shape  which  goes  nearest 
to  the  hearts  of  all  Indian  potentates,  by  grants  of  land.  His  recom- 
mendations were  now  at  length  carried  out,  and  the  loyal  princes 
received  their  reward  under  conditions  which  bound  them  to  us  by 
closer  ties,  and  helped  to  paralyse  the  adjoining  robber  tribes. 

The  forced  loan,  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent,  interest,  which  early 
in  the  Mutiny,  had  been  levied  by  order  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  on 
different  districts  of  the  Punjab,  had  been  raised  with  some  diffi- 
culty— for  the  visits  of  the  tax-gatherer  are  never  pleasant,  and  the 
money-loving  Sikh  was  not  likely  to  give  his  money  readily  in  sup- 
port of  a  doubtful  cause — but  raised  it  had  been.  And  it  proved 
a  master-stroke  of  iiolicy.     For  it  supplied  us  with  funds  when  we 


1857-58  JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS  A   PACIFICATOR.  269 

needed  them  most  sorely,  and  bound  the  land-owners  and  merchants 
to  the  cause  of  our  Government  by  ties  the  force  of  which  they 
could  not  fail  to  recognise.  And  now,  within  a  year,  it  was  relig- 
iously repaid,  interest  and  all,  to  our  anxious  creditors  ! 

On  another  principle  equally  well  understood  in  the  East,  that  a 
community  is  responsible  for  the  acts  of  the  individuals  of  which  it 
is  composed.  Sir  John  Lawrence  issued  an  order  that  all  damage 
done  to  individuals  in  a  given  district  should  be  made  good  by  fines 
levied  on  it.  And  thus  again,  within  little  more  than  a  year,  every 
loyal  citizen  in  the  Punjab  received  full  compensation  for  any  loss 
that  he  had  suffered. 

How  Sir  John  Lawrence  dealt  with  the  cry  for  blood  which  had 
been  raised  after  the  fall  of  Delhi,  and  which  was  still  to  be  heard 
in  the  districts  that  were  falling  again  under  our  rule  in  India,  I 
have  already  shown. 

But  there  was  another  cry  which  was  beginning  to  make  itself 
heard  both  in  England  and  in  India,  and  which  called  not  less 
loudly  for  the  insight,  the  grasp,  the  calmness,  the  toleration  of  a 
Christian  statesman.  The  cry  now  raised  was  for  '  the  elimination 
of  all  unchristian  principles  from  the  Government  of  India.'  How 
this  came  about  requires  explanation.  The  English  Government 
had  always,  hitherto,  professed  to  observe  a  strict  neutrality  between 
the  rival  creeds  of  its  subject  races.  In  early  times,  indeed,  it  had 
gone  beyond  this.  For  while,  partly  from  prudential  considerations, 
and  partly  from  religious  indifference,  it  had  tolerated  and  author- 
ised, or  even  encouraged  some  of  the  most  debasing  customs  or 
cruel  and  immoral  religious  rites  of  its  subjects,  it  had  systemati- 
cally discouraged  all  attempts  to  introduce  Christianity  into  India. 

That  day  had  long  since  gone  by.  Christian  missionaries  were 
no  longer  in  danger  of  being  brow-beaten  by  the  authorities.  But 
the  Bible  was  still  a  forbidden  book  in  all  Government  schools,  even 
for  those  who  wished  to  read  it  ;  and  converts  to  Christianity  who, 
by  the  mere  fact  of  their  conversion,  had  cut  themselves  off  from  all 
employment  by  their  fellow-countrymen,  found  themselves  also 
practically  debarred  from  employment  by  their  conquerors. 

But  now  the  Mutiny  had  come.  It  had  caused  men  to  think  as 
well  as  to  act,  and  many  maxims  of  government  and  conduct  which 
had,  hitherto,  been  accepted  as  axioms  were  brought  into  question, 
and  judged  in  the  new  and  lurid,  and  possibly,  misleading  light 
thrown  on  them  by  that  great  upheaval.  There  had  always  been 
among  the  servants  of  the  East  India  Comi)any  a  leaven  of  men 
who  had  strong  religious  convictions,  men  who  were  not  wholly 


2/0  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

content  to  hide  their  light  under  a  bushel,  and  had,  in  uneasy  mo- 
ments, asked  themselves  after  the  manner  of  the  early  half-converts 
to  Christianity,  whether  it  was  possible  to  serve  both  the  Company 
and  Christ,  or  whether  they  must  needs  make  a  choice  between  the 
one  or  the  other.  These  men  belonged  chiefly  to  what  is  called 
the  Evangelical  School.  It  is  a  type  of  religion  which,  like  the 
Puritanism  of  which  it  is  the  child,  has  sometimes  tended  to  be- 
come narrow,  hard,  and  uncharitable.  But  upon  the  other  hand,  it 
is  to  the  zeal  and  the  devotion,  the  burning  love  to  God  and  man 
which  have  characterised  its  chief  apostles,  that  we  owe  it  that  any 
form  of  religion  was  kept  alive  in  England  in  the  most  flippant  and 
heartless  of  epochs.  And  it  is  to  them,  too,  that  some  of  the  most 
■  salutary  social  reforms,  the  most  flourishing  religious  societies  and 
the  most  far-reaching  and  comprehensive  charitable  institutions  of 
which  England  has  to  boast,  owe  their  origin  and  progress. 

The  number  of  men  who  were  moved  by  deep  religious  convic- 
tions of  this  kind  had  much  increased  in  India  in  recent  years,  and 
nowhere  were  so  many  of  them  to  be  found  collected  together  as  in 
the  Punjab.  They  were  men  who  were  disposed  to  see  the  hand  of 
God  in  everything  ;  who  saw  it,  above  all,  in  the  Mutiny ;  and  re- 
garding the  Mutiny  as  a  Divine  judgment  on  us  as  a  nation,  they 
set  tJiemselves,  in  the  spirit  of  the  Hebrews  of  old,  to  discover  and 
to  put  away  the  unclean  thing.  With  these  men — all  of  them  his 
friends — Sir  John  Lawrence  found  himself  in  partial,  but  by  no 
means  in  complete,  sympathy.  His  religion  was  of  a  much  simpler 
and  more  childlike  type.  No  more  sincere  Christian  ever  lived.  He 
walked  as  in  the  sight  of  God.  He  read  the  Bible  every  morning  of 
his  life  with  prayer,  and  regarded  it  as  the  only  and  as  the  sufficient 
guide  to  Heaven.  But  he  rarely  talked  on  religious  questions,  and 
still  more  rarely  did  he  make  use  of  the  phraseology  which  was 
current  in  religious  circles  of  the  strictly  Evangelical  type.  The 
religious  expressions  made  use  of  in  his  letters  are  of  the  simplest 
and  most  childlike  kind.  They  increase  considerably,  in  number, 
at  the  time  of  the  Mutiny.  But  their  general  character  is  unaltered, 
nor  can  I  find  any  indication  of  a  change  in  this  respect,  even  to 
the  end  of  his  life.  Several  of  his  intimate  friends,  men  who  had 
formulated  their  religious  belief,  and,  as  is  commonly  the  case  with 
men  of  their  type  of  mind,  were  not  unwilling  to  talk  freely  about 
it,  have  told  me  that  they  often  regretted  John  Lawrence's  *  short- 
comings '  in  this  particular  ;  that  they  tried,  more  or  less  in  vain,  to 
*  keep  him  up  to  the  mark  ;  '  and  that  they  were  half  amused,  half 
surprised,  when,  on  his  return  home  as  the  hero  of  the  Mutiny,  they 


1857-58         JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  27 1 

observed  the  capital  that  some  people,  with  whom  he  was  only  half 
in  sympathy,  attempted  to  make  out  of  him,  by  inducing  him  to 
mount  a  platform  and  deliver  a  speech  which  trenched  on  matters 
of  religious  controversy. 

Now  it  was  observed  by  religious  men  in  India,  that  had  the 
Sepoys  possessed  any  real  knowledge  of  Christianity  ;  had  not,  in 
fact,  pains  been  taken  to  keep  that  knowledge  from  them  ;  they 
could  never  have  supposed  that  the  English  Government  intended 
to  make  Christians  of  them  against  their  will  by  a  series  of  external 
acts.  There  was  much  truth  in  this,  and  had  the  times  been 
altogether  quiet  times  there  would  have  been  little  to  say  on  the 
other  side.  But  the  times  were  not  quiet  times,  and  in  moments  of 
panic,  above  all  of  religious  panic,  the  more  incredible,  the  more^ 
preposterous,  the  more  impossible  a  thing  is,  the  more  readily 
does  it  propagate  itself  and  spread  like  wildfire  among  the 
multitude.  In  any  case,  as  the  Mutiny  gradually  subsided,  a  cry 
for  an  entire  change  of  religious  policy  was  raised  in  India.  It  was 
re-echoed,  with  exaggerations,  on  religious  platforms  in  England, 
and  it,  finally,  found  a  mouthpiece  in  India  in  the  person  of  Herbert 
Edwardes,  one  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  most  distinguished  lieuten- 
ants, a  man  of  much  rhetorical  power,  and,  as  this  biography  has 
shown  throughout,  of  very  great  force  of  character. 

After  consultation  with  friends  who  were  of  a  like  mind  at 
Peshawur,  Edwardes  issued  his  famous  Memorandum  on  '  the 
Elimination  of  all  unchristian  principles  from  the  Government  of 
India.'  Among  what  he  called  the  *  unchristian  elements  '  in  our 
policy,  against  which  his  attack  was  directed,  were  the  exclusion  of 
the  Bible  and  of  Christian  teaching  from  Government  schools,  the 
endowment  of  native  religions  by  the  public  revenue,  the  recogni- 
tion of  caste,  the  observance  of  native  holydays  in  the  public  offices, 
the  administration  by  the  English  of  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  law, 
the  publicity  of  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  processions,  the  restric- 
tions on  the  marriage  of  European  soldiers  in  India,  and  the  con- 
nection of  Government  with  the  opium  trade. 

Here  was  a  comprehensive  programme,  and  how  did  Sir  John 
Lawrence  deal  with  it  ?  It  is  obvious  from  what  I  have  said 
already  that  there  was  something  in  it  with  which  he  would  heartily 
agree.  But  there  was  much  also  to  which  he  would  offer,  to  which 
any  true  statesman  would  offer,  and,  not  least,  the  more  calmly- 
judging  even  of  Edwardes'  own  school,  an  uncompromising  opposi- 
tion. The  answer  he  gave  is  one  of  the  most  com))rehensive  and 
sagacious  which  ever  came   from  his  pen,  but  before  I  proceed  to 


2/2  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

quote  its  more  important  paragraphs,  I  would  show  by  an  extract  or 
two  from  his  private  letters,  how,  on  one  or  two  points,  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Bible  into  schools,  and  the  hearty  support  of  Chris- 
tian missions,  he  was  prepared  to  go  a  good  way  along  with 
Edwardes.  He  differed  from  him  chiefly — and  few  will  deny  that 
he  was  right  in  doing  so — in  thinking  that  in  no  case  should  the 
Bible  be  read  in  Government  schools,  without  the  express  wish  of 
the  pupils  or  their  parents. 

There  is  now,  (says  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  Trevelyan  on  July  2,  1858,) 
a  great  dispute  growing  up  as  to  whether  the  Bible  shall  be  introduced 
into  our  schools  or  not.  I  think  that  it  should,  and  that — provided  only  it 
be  done  with  prudence  and  tact — the  people  will  never  raise  an  objec- 
tion. All  that  we  have  to  do  is  to  take  care  that  the  study  of  the  Bible 
be  optional  with  the  children. 

And  to  his  friend  William  Arnold,  a  son  of  Dr.  Arnold  and  the 
able  Director  of  Public  Instruction  in  the  Punjab,  who  took  strongly 
the  opposite  view,  and  argued  that  the  Founder  of  Christianity 
would  Himself  have  disapproved  of  the  measure,  he  writes  as  follows: 

I  believe  that,  provided  neither  force  nor  fraud  were  used,  Christ 
would  assuredly  approve  of  the  introduction  of  the  Bible.  We  believe 
that  the  Bible  is  true,  that  it  is  the  only  means  of  salvation.  Surely  we 
should  lend  our  influence  in  making  it  known  to  our  subjects.  A  Turk 
who  acted  up  to  his  own  convictions  would  only  act  consistently  in  incul- 
cating the  study  of  the  Koran.  But  whether  he  acted  rightly  or  wrongly 
in  doing  so,  is  for  a  higher  judge  to  determine.  As  a  matter  of  policy, 
I  advocate  the  introduction  of  the  Bible  quite  as  much  as  a  matter  of 
duty.  I  believe  that,  provided  we  do  it  wisely  and  judiciously,  the  people 
will  gradually  read  that  book.  I  have  reason  to  suppose  this  because  the 
missionaries  are  successful.  On  the  other  hand,  nothing  will  more  surely 
conduce  to  the  strength  of  our  power  in  India  than  the  spread  of  Chris- 
tianity. You  seem  to  think  that  we  violate  the  principles  of  toleration  by 
attempting  to  convert  the  people.  I  think  you  might  just  as  well  assume 
that  we  violate  such  principles  by  preferring  in  a  public  office  a  respect- 
able man  to  a  reprobate,  a  wise  man  to  a  fool,  and  an  industrious  man  to 
a  lazy  one.  The  whole  question  seems  to  me  to  resolve  itself  into  what 
is  the  just  interpretation  of  the  term  toleration.  I  consider  that  it  means 
'forbearance.'  That  is  to  say,  that  we  are  to  bear  with  and  not  to  per- 
secute mankind  for  their  religious  opinions.  But  this  cannot  mean  that 
we  should  not  strive  by  gentle  means  to  lead  those  in  the  right  way 
whom  we  see  to  be  going  wrong. 

I  now  proceed  to  give  his  reply  to  Herbert  Edwardes,  omitting 
only  a  few  of  the  less  important  paragraphs. 


1357-58  JOHN   LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  273 

The  above  heads  (the  ten  unchristian  elements  enumerated  by  Ed- 
wardes  in  the  Government  of  India)  are  certainly  comprehensive,  and 
embrace  almost  every  point  on  which  the  conduct  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment, in  reference  to  Christianity,  could  be  open  to  doubt  or  question. 
How  far  they  actually  exist,  or  how  far  some  of  them  are  really  unchris- 
tian, may  be  matter  for  further  consideration.  But  on  this  the  Chief 
Commissioner's  opinion  will  be  apparent  from  the  remarks  which  I  am 
now  to  offer  oneach  head  separately. 

3.  Firstly,  then,  in  respect  to  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  in  Government 
schools  and  colleges,  I  am  to  state  that  in  the  Chief  Commissioner's 
judgment  such  teaching  ought  to  be  offered  to  all  those  who  may  be 
willing  to  receive  it.  The  Bible  ought  not  only  to  be  placed  among  the 
college  libraries  and  the  school  books,  for  the  perusal  of  those  who 
might  choose  to  consult  it  ;  but,  also,  it  should  be  taught  in  class 
wherever  vve  have  teachers  fit  to  teach  it  and  pupils  willing  to  hear  it. 
Such,  broadly  stated,  is  the  principle.  That  the  time  when  it  can  be 
carried  out  in  every  school  of  every  village  and  town  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  may  be  hastened,  is  the  aspiration  of 
every  Christian  officer.  But  where  are  the  means  for  doing  this  in  the 
many  thousands  of  schools  in  the  interior  of  the  country  ?  Supposing 
the  pupils  are  forthcoming  to  hear,  who  is  to  read  and  expound  to  theni 
the  Bible  ?  Is  such  a  task  to  be  intrusted  to  heathen  schoolmasters,  who 
might  be,  and  but  too  often  would  be,  enemies  to  Christianity,  and  who 
would  be  removed,  not  only  from  control,  but  even  from  the  chances  of 
correction  ?  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  the  Scriptures  do  not  need  in- 
terpreters, and  may  be  read  by  any  one  ;  but  still  it  might  be  possible  for 
a  village  schoolmaster  averse  to  Christianity  to  read  and  explain  the 
Scriptures  in  an  irreverent  and  improper  manner.  And,  then,  the 
strongest  advocates  of  religious  teaching  would  admit  that  the  Bible  had 
better  not  be  read  and  explained  in  a  perverse,  captious,  and  sneering 
manner.  If,  then,  the  Bible  is  to  be  taught  only  by  fitting  persons,  it  will 
be  admitted  that  our  means  are,  unhappily,  but  very  limited.  This 
difficulty  does  not  seem  to  have  fully  struck  Colonel  Edwardes  ;  but  it 
has  been  noted  by  Mr.  Macleod,  who  suggests  that  Bible  classes  should 
be  formed  only  in  those  Government  schools  where  a  chaplain  or  some 
other  Christian  and  devout  person,  European  or  native,  might  be  found 
to  undertake  the  teaching.  That  some  such  rule  must  in  practice  be  ob- 
served seems  certain.  But  then  it  will  be  obvious  at  a  glance  that  such 
teachers  must  be  extremely  few.  That  the  number  will  increase  may, 
indeed,  be  hoped,  and,  very  possibly,  native  teachers  will  be  found  of 
good  characters  and  thoughtful  minds,  who,  though  not  actually  baptised 
Christians,  are  yet  well  disposed,  and  might  be  intrusted  with  the  reading 
of  the  Bible  to  classes.  But,  at  the  best,  the  reading  of  the  Bible  in  class 
must  practically  be  restricted  to  but  a  small  proportion  of  the  Government 
schools.  In  these  latter  there  ought  to  be,  the  Chief  Commissioner  con- 
siders, regular  Bible  classes  held  by  a  qualified  person  as  above  described, 
for  all  those  who  might  be  willing  to  attend.     There  is  a  good  hope  that 


274  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

such  attendance  would  not  be  small  ;  but,  however  small  it  might  be,  the 
class  ought  to  be  held,  in  order  that  our  views  of  Christian  duty  might  be 
])atent  to  the  native  public,  and  in  the  trust  that  ihe  example  might 
not  be  without  effect.  The  formation  of  Bible  classes  of  an  approved 
character  in  as  many  schools  as  possible  should  be  a  recognised 
branch  of  the  educational  department.  Inspectors  should  endeavour  to 
establish  them  in  the  same  way  as  they  originate  improvements  of  other 
kinds,  and  the  subject  should  be  properly  mentioned  in  all  periodical 
reports.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Chief  Commissioner  would  never 
admit  that  the  unavoidable  absence  of  Bible  classes  should  be  used  as  an 
argument  against  the  establishment  of  schools  unaccompanied  by  Chris- 
tian teaching.  If  Government  is  not  to  establish  a  school  in  a  village 
unless  it  can  find  a  man  fit  to  read  the  Bible,  and  boys  willing  to  hear  it, 
then  there  is  no  doubt  that  at  first  such  a  condition  could  not  be  fulfilled 
in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  ;  and  the  result  would  be  that  light  and 
knowledge  would  be  shut  out  from  the  mass  of  the  population.  A  purely 
secular  system  is  not,  the  Chief  Commissioner  believes,  in  India  at  least, 
adverse  to  religious  influences,  nor  worthless  without  simultaneous  re- 
ligious instruction.  On  the  contrary,  the  spread  of  European  knowledge 
amopg  the  natives  is,  as  it  were,  a  pioneer  to  the  progress  of  Christian- 
ity. The  opinion  of  missionaries,  in  Upper  India  at  least,  may  be  con- 
fidently appealed  to  on  this  point.  If  this  be  the  case,  then,  having 
established  all  the  Bible  classes  we  could,  having  done  our  best  to 
augmeni  tlieir  number,  having  practically  shown  to  the  world  by  our 
educational  rules  that  we  do  desire  that  the  Bible  should  be  read  and 
taught,  we  may,  as  Mr.  Macleod  has  appropriately  expressed  it,  hope 
that  '  a  blessing  would  not  be  denied  to  our  system  '  of  secular  educa- 
tion. But,  so  far  as  the  native  religions  are  concerned,  the  Chief  Com- 
missioner considers  that  the  education  should  be  purely  and  entirely 
secular.  These  religions  ought  not  to  be  taught  in  the  Government 
schools.  Such  teaching  would  indeed  be  superfluous.  The  natives  have 
ample  means  of  their  own  for  this  purpose  and  need  no  aid.  But,  if 
they  did  need  aid,  it  is  not  our  business  to  afford  such.  The  case  is  of 
course  utterly  different  as  regards  Christianity.  Of  that  religion  .the 
native  can  have  no  knowledge  except  through  our  instrumentality.  And 
this  religion  we  should  teach  exclusively,  so  far  as  we  can,  from  the 
preference  which  it  is  our  right  and  our  duty  to  give  to  what  we  believe 
to  be  the  truth.  But  while  we  say  that  Christianity  shall  be  the  only 
religion  taught  in  our  schools,  we  ought  not,  the  Chief  Commissioner 
considers,  to  render  attendance  on  Bible  classes  compulsory  or  obliga- 
tory. If  Colonel  Edwardes  would  render  it  thus  obligatory — if  he  means 
that  every  pupil,  if  he  attend  school  at  all,  must  attend  the  Bible  class, 
should  there  be  one — then  the  Chief  Commissioner  entirely  dissents  from 
this  view.  So  long  as  the  attendance  is  voluntary  there  will  be  boys  to 
attend  ;  but,  if  it  be  obligatory,  then  suspicion  is  aroused,  and  there  is 
some  chance  of  empty  benches.  Moreover,  as  a  matter  of  principle  the 
Chief  Commissioner  believes  that,  if  anything  like  compulsion  enters  into 


i857-S8        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  275 

our  system  of  diffusing-  Christianity,  tine  rules  of  that  religion  itself  are 
disobeyed,  and  that  we  shall  never  be  permitted  to  profit  by  our  disobe- 
dience. The  wrong  means  for  a  right  end  will  recoil  upon  ourselves, 
and  we  shall  only  steel  people  to  resistance  where  we  might  have  per- 
suaded them. 

4.  Secondly,  Colonel  Edwardes  recommends  that  all  grants  or  aliena- 
tions from  the  public  revenue  for  native  religions  be  now  resumed  iti  toto. 
In  the  Chief  Commissioner's  opinion  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a 
more  impracticable  measure.  The  grants  are  all  old,  and  many  of  them 
ancient.  Our  predecessors  granted  them  ;  succeeding  Governments  of 
different  faiths  respected  them  ;  they  in  time  became  a  species  of  prop- 
erty ;  they  acquired  a  kind  of  State  guarantee,  to  the  effect  that  the 
alienation  of  revenue  should  not  be  disturbed  during  good  behaviour. 
On  our  accession,  we  regarded  them  as  the  property  of  certain  religious 
institutions,  just  as  conventual  lands  in  Roman  Catholic  countries  are 
ecclesiastical  property.  As  property  (held  on  certain  conditions)  we 
maintained  them,  and  as  nothing  else.  They  were  never  considered 
as  religious  offerings  on  our  part  either  by  ourselves,  or  by  the  grantees, 
or  by  the  people.  Of  course  we  have  made  no  new  grants  of  this  kind  ; 
and  those  previously  existing  we  have  endeavoured  to  curtail  wherever 
there  might  be  reason.  In  the  Punjab  many  overgrown  grants  have 
been  reduced,  though  care  has  been  taken  that  the  reduction  should  not 
be  such  as  to  press  unfairly.  In  some  cases  the  endowment  is  reduced 
on  the  death  of  each  successive  head  of  the  institution,  until  a  minim.um 
is  reached  sufficient,  with  economy,  to  cover  the  expenses.  We  have 
diminished  their  political  honour  and  prestige  by  attaching  to  them 
conditions  of  loyalty  and  good  behaviour.  In  short,  we  have  in  no  wise 
encouraged  them.  But,  now,  to  resume  them  altogether  would  be  a 
breach  of  faith  (inasmuch  as  they  have  been  guaranteed,  with  more  or 
less  of  legal  sanction,  by  ourselves),  and  would  resemble  the  confiscation 
of  property.  And  to  do  so  on  the  ground  that  the  institutions  are 
heathen  would  be  nothing  short  of  persecution  of  heathenism.  That 
anything  approaching  to  such  persecution  is  enjoined  or  sanctioned  by 
Christianity  is  not  to  be  supposed.  Indeed,  it  might  be  feared  that  any 
such  attempt  on  our  part  would  frustrate  its  own  object.  The  judgments 
of  Providence  would  become  manifest  in  the  political  disaffection  which 
might  ensue,  and  in  the  hatred  with  which  our  rule  would  be  regarded 
by  an  influential  priestly  class  suddenly  thrown  into  distress.  Such  a 
step  would  be  far  more  likely  to  retard  than  to  promote  the  progress  of 
Christianity  ;  and  we  should  never  cease  to  be  regarded  by  the  people 
as  the  authors  of  an  unjustifiable  spoliation.  Our  equal  and  impartial 
forbearance  towards  all  creeds  differing  from  our  own  has  always  con- 
stituted one  of  our  first  claims  to  the  confidence  of  the  people.  It  has 
been  one  of  the  pillars  of  our  strength,  and  it  has  been  one  of  the  means 
by  which  we  have  held  subject  millions  in  control.  This  forbearance 
and  just  impartiality  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  due  profession  of  our 
own  faith  ;  and  the  Chief  Commissioner  believes  that  this  line  of  conduct 


2/6  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

is  practically  inculcated  by  the  whole  tenour  of  Christianity.  Whether, 
while  thus  acting,  we  have  been  sufficiently  open  and  zealous  in  our  own 
professions,  may  be  matter  for  consideration.  The  Chief  Commissioner 
doubts  whether  we  have  been  really  so  remiss  in  this  respect  as  Colonel 
Edwardes  and  many  others  believe.  But  he  admits  that  in  future  we 
are  called  upon  by  the  lesson  of  recent  events  to  examine  our  ways  and 
to  strive  for  improvement.  I  am  to  add  on  this  topic  that,  since  the 
Punjab  came  into  our  possession,  our  officers  have  never  been  concerned 
in  the  administration  of,  or  otherwise  connected  with,  heathen  shrines  or 
institutions.  If  any  such  case  had  ever  come  to  the  Chief  Commission- 
er's knowledge,  he  would  immediately  have  put  an  end  to  it. 

5.  Thirdly,  respecting  the  recognition  of  caste.  There  appears  to  be 
an  impression  with  a  section  of  the  public  that  the  British  Government 
has  universally  recognised  caste,  in  a  manner  calculated  to  encourage 
and  extend  its  baneful  influences,  and  that  the  existence  of  caste  may,  in 
some  degree,  be  dependent  on  such  recognition.  But  the  fact  is  that, 
except  in  the  Bengal  army,  the  Government  has  not  recognised  caste  in 
any  especial  manner;  and  that  its  recognition  or  negation  does  not  ma- 
terially affect  this  extraordinary  institution.  It  doubtless  came  to  pass 
that  Brahmins  and  Rajpoots  were  almost  exclusively  enlisted,  because 
they  really  were  at  one  time  physically  the  finest  men  obtainable,  and 
because  they,  apparently,  were  superior  in  moral  qualifications  ;  and 
also,  perhaps,  because  they  were  descended  from  the  old  soldiers  who 
originally  first  fought  in  our  ranks.  As  men  of  these  classes,  available 
and  ready  for  service,  abounded  most  in  Oude,  recruits  came  to  be 
chiefly  taken  from  that  province.  By  degrees,  the  practice  of  almost 
exclusively  enlisting  Brahmins  and  Rajpoots  from  Oude  so  grew,  and  so 
obtained  a  hold  upon  the  minds  of  our  officers,  that,  as  a  rule,  they  would 
not  accept  men  of  other  castes.  And  thus  the  men,  being  nearly  all  of 
tile  same  caste,  of  the  same  dialect,  from  the  same  districts,  with  the  same 
associations,  generally  with  the  mutual  connection  of  clanship,  and  often 
with  that  of  affinity  and  consanguinity,  a  regiment  of  the  line  became  a 
brotherhood  or  cousinhood  in  a  great  degree,  with  a  common  feeling 
pervading  the  whole.  And  further,  the  Bengal  regular  army  became  a 
vast  aggregate  or  confederation  of  brotherhoods.  That  the  caste  preju- 
dices of  the  army  were  intensified  by  the  consideration  shown  by  their 
officers  is  certain.  But  in  order  to  avoid  this  error  in  future  we  need  not 
run  into  the  extreme  of  proscribing  certain  castes  or  of  irritating  others. 
We  are  not  required  by  Christianity  nor  by  sound  policy  to  do  either  the 
one  or  the  other.  In  recruiting  for  the  native  army  we  cannot,  however, 
ignore  caste.  If  the  thing  were  left  to  itself  the  consequence  would  be 
that  certain  castes,  being  naturally  more  apt  for  military  service,  such  as 
Rajpoots  and  Brahmins,  would  obtain  the  preponderance,  and  thus  the 
error  of  the  past  would  be  revived.  We  must  take  note  of  the  caste  of 
recruits  and  arrange  that  each  regiment  shall  be  composed  of  quotas 
from  the  different  castes  ;  that  no  one  caste  shall  preponderate,  and 
especially  that  the  sacerdotal   class  shall  not  have  an  undue  influence. 


1857-58        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   A    PACIFICATOR.  277 

It  were,  indeed,  to  be  desired  tliat  tlie  Brahmin  and  tlie  Sweeper  sliould 
•  be  comrades  in  tlie  ranks.  But,  as  regards  the  Sweeper  caste,  the  Chief 
Commissioner  doubts  whether  in  the  Bengal  Presidency  it  will  be  possi- 
ble to  employ  them  in  the  same  regiment  with  the  other  castes.  An 
attempt  to  do  this  might  drive  from  our  service  very  many  men  whom 
we  sliould  desire  to  keep.  But  it  might  be  quite  possible  to  raise  Sweeper 
regiments,  as  was  done  in  the  Sikh  army  under  Runjeet  Sing,  and  has 
again  been  tried  in  the  Punjab  since  the  mutinies.  And  no  prejudice 
should  be  allowed  to  deter  us  from  doing  this.  But  whatever  the  castes 
may  be,  high  or  low,  it  should  be  made  a  positive  rule  that,  while  no 
man's  prejudices  should  be  unnecessarily  violated,  yet  that  no  prejudice, 
whether  of  caste  or  otherwise,  should  be  in  the  least  allowed  to  interfere 
with  the  performance  of  any  military  duty,  or  of  any  fair  service  that 
might  be  required.  As  to  the  admission  of  native  Christians  to  the 
ranks,  it  will  be  a  happy  time  when  regiments  of  this  class  shall  be 
raised.  But  for  the  Bengal  Presidency  generally,  such  a  time  will  be 
distant.  In  the  meanwhile,  Christian  recruits,  if  they  offer  themselves, 
ought  to  be  accepted.  But  the  Chief  Commissioner  believes  that  there 
are  some  parts  of  the  Empire  where  Christian  regiments  might  be  raised, 
such  as  the  southern  districts  of  the  Peninsula,  the  Karen  country, 
Chota  Nagpore,  Kishnaghur,  and  other  places,  perhaps,  on  the  fron- 
tiers of  Bengal.  If  this  be  so,  then  he  would  urge  in  the  very  strongest 
terms  that  such  troops  ought  to  be  raised.  It  is,  indeed,  impossible 
to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  such  a  measure.  With  such  a  force  at 
command,  British  rule  might  be  said  to  have  struck  a  new  root  in  India. 
In  respect  to  the  conversion  of  native  Sepoys,  it  has  been  remarked 
with  truth  that  no  class  of  the  population  have  been  less  operated  upon 
by  missionary  influences  than  the  Bengal  army.  But  the  Government 
cannot  alter  this  circumstance.  Facilities  should  be  afforded  to  Sepoys 
of  consulting  missionaries  if  they  choose  to  do  so.  A  missionary  may 
give  tracts  and  books  to  those  Sepoys  who  like  to  take  them.  But  any- 
thing like  the  distribution  of  tracts  among  a  whole  regiment,  or  the 
preaching  to  the  Sepoys  in  a  body,  would  be  objectionable.  In  the 
present  temper  of  the  natives,  no  regiment  that  could  be  raised  would 
voluntarily  acquiesce  in  such  measures.  No  such  scheme  could,  in  all 
probability,  be  carried  out.  If  carried  out  at  all,  it  would  be  under  Gov- 
ernment auspices  and  by  Government  influence.  In  that  case  the  power 
of  Government  would  be  used  as  an  engine  of  proselytism  ;  and  such  a 
policy  would  not  be  distinguishable  in  principle  from  the  propagation  of 
religion  by  secular  rewards,  by  force,  or  by  persecution.  These  remarks 
apply,  of  course,  to  regiments  of  Hindus  and  Mohammedans,  who  are 
attached  to  their  own  creeds.  But  we  might  have  regiments  of  half- 
savage  tribes,  destitute  of  any  decided  faith.  Tliese  might  not  be  un- 
willing to  hear  the  Christian  preacher,  and  in  that  case  it  would  be  most 
desirable  that  they  should  be  preached  to  in  bodies,  and  that  every  fair 
advantage  should  be  taken  of  their  being  congregated  together  to  diffuse 
the  truth  among  them.    If  individual  Sepojis  shall  be  converted  by  purely 


2/8  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

legitimate  means,  such  conversions  will  afford  matter  for  congratula- 
tion. But  the  Chief  Commissioner  apprehends  that  Sepoys  thus  converted 
should  generally  be  removed  from  their  regiments,  in  an  honourable 
manner,  of  course,  and  then  otherwise  provided  for,  or  transferred  to 
some  corps  where  they  might  find  Christian  companions.  If  they  re- 
mained among  their  heathen  comrades  they  would  be  exposed  to  bad 
influences  and  their  lives  would  be  embittered.  Their  presence  in  the 
corps  would  not,  in  the  least,  turn  the  hearts  of  the  Sepoys  towards 
Christianity,  but  would  only  cause  irritation  in  their  minds  and  excite 
distrust  against  the  Government.  The  Chief  Commissioner  would  not 
transfer  from  the  corps  a  converted  man  who  could  maintain  his  status 
therein  ;  but  to  keep  a  man  in  a  regiment  when  his  presence  is  a  stand- 
ing offence  to  his  comrades  would  be  opposed  to  the  meek  and  retiring 
spirit  of  Christianity.  Turning  to  the  civil  departments,  the  Chief  Com- 
missioner observes  that  here  the  same  attention  has  not  been  paid  to 
caste.  In  the  regular  police,  and  such-like  subordinate  establishments, 
caste  is  less  considered,  and  high  caste  men  form  but  a  moderate  pro- 
portion, though  the  very  lowest  castes  are,  as  a  rule,  found  only  among 
the  village  or  rural  police,  in  which  latter,  indeed,  they  preponderate. 
Not  that  the  civil  officers  have  especially  attended  to  the  apportioning 
of  castes,  but  the  thing  has  been  allowed  to  take  its  natural  course,  and 
consequently  there  are  some  Brahmins,  some  Rajpoots,  some  middle- 
caste  men,  some  Mohammedans.  The  native  ministerial  officers  of  the 
courts  are  generally  of  the  '  Kayuth  '  and  '  Bunya  ' — that  is,  the  trading 
and  writing — castes,  with  a  sprinkling  of  Brahmins  and  Mohammedans. 
That  preponderance  must  be  inevitable  so  long  as  education  and  knowl- 
edge of  reading  and  writing  shall  be  so  much  confined  to  the  Kayuth 
and  Bunya  castes.  Among  the  native  judicial  officers  and  others  of  the 
highest  grades  Mohammedans  form  a  considerable  proportion.  In  these 
departments  also  native  Christians,  if  they  seek  employment,  should  re- 
ceive it.  But  the  Chief  Commissioner  concurs  with  Mr.  Macleod  in  opin- 
ion that  we  must  be  cautious  in  offering  employment  to  Christians,  es- 
pecially in  an  ostentatious  manner,  lest  such  offers  should  operate  as  an 
inducement  to  conversion  from  worldly  motives.  Colonel  Edwardes 
seems  to  believe  that  Sweepers  and  others  of  the  lowest  castes  are  prac- 
tically almost  excluded  from  the  courts  of  justice,  and  does  not  remem- 
ber an  instance  of  such  a  person  appearing  in  the  witness-box.  But  the 
Chief  Commissioner  can,  within  his  experience,  recall  many  such  in- 
stances where  these  men  have  been  both  parties  and  witnesses  in  cases, 
and  he  is  confident  that  such  instances  are  not  so  very  unfrequent.  There 
certainly  is  nothing  whatever  to  prevent  these  men  from  apjiearing  in 
court,  but  still  the  native  ministerial  officers  doubtless  would  treat  them 
with  contempt,  and  our  officers  should  be  warned  to  check  and  stop  any 
tendency  of  this  kind  ;  and,  under  this  head,  I  am  further  to  remark  that, 
under  our  revenue  system,  men  of  the  lower  class  flourish  rather  than 
those  of  the  higher.  The  former  are  the  more  industrious  as  agricul- 
turists, and  frequently  they  sflcceed  in  holding  their  own  where  the  bet- 


1857-58         JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  279 

ter  born  people  have  failed  utterly.  This  remark  is  particularly  applic- 
able to  the  Punjab,  where  Brahmins  and  Rajpoots  seldom  succeed  with 
the  plough.  Here,  if  a  preference  existed  at  all,  it  would  be  shown  to 
men  of  the  lower  castes.  Lastly,  it  will  be  seen  that  Colonel  Edwardes 
thinks  that  the  caste  of  prisoners  in  gaol  should  not  be  violated  by  the 
messing  system.  In  the  Punjab,  I  am  to  observe,  the  prisoners  are  not 
required  to  break  their  caste  in  this  manner,  because  a  Brahmin  is  em- 
ployed to  cook  for  the  whole  mess.  But  if  this  were  otherwise,  still  a 
man  could  always  regain  his  caste  by  some  trouble  and  expense  after 
discharge  from  gaol,  and  thus  a  temporary  loss  of  caste  might  be 
properly  thought  to  form  a  part  of  the  punishment. 

6.  Fourthly,  Colonel  Edwardes  proposes  that  all  native  holydays  should 
be  disallowed  in  our  public  offices.  The  Chief  Commissioner  cannot 
consider  this  to  be  a  reasonable  proposal,  and  Mr.  Macleod  also  is 
opposed  to  it.  The  number  of  these  holydays  should  be  restricted  to 
those  days  on  which  either  Hindus  or  Mohammedans  are  bound  to 
attend  the  ordinances  of  their  respective  religions.  But  we  surely  can- 
not refuse  our  native  employe's  permission  to  attend  on  such  occasions. 
To  refuse  this  would  be  in  effect  to  say  that  a  native  shall  not  remain  in 
our  service  unless  he  consent  to  abandon  his  religion.  By  all  the  prin- 
ciples of  Christianity  this  is  not  the  manner  in  which  we  ought  to  contend 
with  heathenism.  Christians  are  not  unfrequently  employed  under 
Mohammedan  Governments  in  various  parts  of  the  world.  What  would 
they  say  if  their  tenure  of  office  was  made  conditional  upon  their  work- 
ing on  Christmas-day  and  Good  Friday  ?  In  this  matter,  we  must  not 
forget  the  maxim  of  doing  to  our  native  employe's  as  we  should  wish 
others  to  do  to  us.  Under  this  heading,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  add  that 
the  closing  of  all  public  offices  and  the  suspension  of  all  public  works  on 
the  Sabbath,  in  obedience  to  the  standing  order  of  the  Supreme  Govern- 
ment, are  duly  enforced  within  these  territories. 

7.  Fifthly,  Colonel  Edwardes  thinks  that  in  our  criminal  and  civil 
administration  we  still  adhere  too  strictly  to  the  Hindu  and  Mohammedan 
laws.  To  this  opinion,  however,  the  Chief  Commissioner  cannot  assent. 
He  concurs  very  much  in  the  views  expressed /fr  contra  by  Mr.  Macleod, 
As  to  the  criminal  law.  Colonel  Edwardes  himself  has,  with  research 
and  ability,  shown  how  persistently  and  consistently  our  legislators  have, 
in  the  course  of  half  a  century,  eliminated  every  objectionable  element 
of  Mohammedan  jurisprudence.  Our  Indian  criminal  law  may  have 
many  defects,  and  may  most  properly  be  replaced  by  the  new  penal  code. 
But  still  its  principles,  as  actually  administered  at  the  present  day,  are 
consistent  with  morality  and  civilisation.  As  regards  the  civil  law, 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Edwardes  remarks  that  any  conquerors  but  ourselves 
would,  long  ere  this,  have  introduced  their  own  code.  Now  the  Chief 
Coinmissioner,  so  far  as  he  understands  the  history  and  policy  of  con- 
quering nations,  believes  the  above  opinion  to  be  erroneous.  No  doubt, 
conquerors  have  always,  in  what  they  deemed  important  matters,  en- 
forced their  own  rules.     But  in  purely  civil  affairs,  not  affecting  imperial 


28o  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

policy,  and  operative  only  as  between  man  and  man,  conquerors  have, 
as  the  Chief  Commissioner  apprehends,  in  all  ages  and  countries  per- 
mitted to  the  conquered  the  use  of  their  local  laws.  We  liave  done  the 
same  in  India  (as  well  as  in  our  other  dependencies  and  colonies),  and 
must  continue  to  do  so.  In  many  important  respects,  such  as  inheritance 
and  the  like,  the  native  laws  are  as  good  as  the  codes  of  other  nations. 
To  abrogate  them  and  to  substitute  a  different  code  of  our  own  would  be 
impracticable,  and,  if  by  any  means  it  were  practicable,  a  grievous 
oppression  would  be  inflicted,  utterly  alien  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity. 
The  Chief  Commissioner  cannot  believe  that  even  Colonel  Edwardes 
would  ])ush  a  theory  to  such  extreme  consequences.  There  are,  indeed, 
some  branches  of  law  regarding  which  the  native  codes  are  incomplete, 
and  in  these  departments  it  is  very  properly  proposed  to  introduce  the 
English  law.  In  the  native  codes,  however,  there  are  two  points  in 
which  reform  should  be  introduced  whenever  it  shall  be  found  prac- 
ticable,— namely,  polygamy,  and  contracts  of  betrothal  by  parents  on 
behalf  of  infant  children.  It  cannot  be  said  that  these  practices  are 
immoral  in  the  abstract,  as  they  were  more  or  less  followed  by  the  Jews 
and  the  Patriarchs  ;  and  the  fact  that  they  are  not  sanctioned  under  the 
Christian  dispensation  would  not,  per  se,  justify  us  in  prohibiting  their 
adoption  by  our  heathen  subjects.  If  we,  by  legal  force,  interdict  things 
on  the  ground  that  they  are  not  Christian,  we  come  to  enforcing  Chris- 
tianity by  secular  means.  But  still  polygamy  and  early  betrothals  are 
socially  very  objectionable,  and  in  reality  much  affect  the  welfare  of  the 
people.  The  Chief  Commissioner  would,  therefore,  earnestly  desire  to 
see  the  law  in  these  respects  altered  if  it  could  be.  But  it  cannot  at 
present,  for  the  people  cling  to  it,  and  in  some  places  would  shed  blood 
for  its  sake.  But  if  ever  the  temper  of  the  public  mind  shall  change,  or  if 
we  should  succeed  in  raising  up  a  strong  party  among  the  natives  in  oppo- 
sition to  these  laws,  then  the  time  for  legislation  will  have  arrived. 
Further,  under  this  head  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  Indian  legislation 
has  made  two  important  steps  in  advance  by  legalising  the  remarriage 
of  Hindu  widows,  and  by  removing  all  possible  civil  disabilities  or  legal 
disadvantages  from  Christian  converts. 

8.  Sixthly,  Colonel  Edwardes  recommends  that  heathen  and  Moham- 
medan processions  should  not  be  allowed  to  parade  in  the  public  streets 
under  the  protection  of  the  police.  In  this  the  Chiei  Commissioner  fully 
concurs  ;  and  I  am  to  state  that  he  would  even  carry  this  view  still 
further,  and  prohibit  altogether  religious  processions  in  public.  This 
would  be  done  not  on  religious  grounds,  but  simply  as  a  police  measure. 
The  natives  themselves  are  perfectly  aware  that  these  processions  stir  up 
animosity  between  rival  religionists  ;  that,  under  the  best  arrangements, 
violent  quarrels  arise  ;  and  that  nothing  but  the  strong  arm  of  the 
British  Government  prevents  bloodshed  occurring.  The  interdiction  of 
these  public  processions  w-ould  not  really  interfere  with  religious  observ- 
ances, and  even  the  Mohammedan  Mohurrum  might  be  solemnised 
without  them.     As  to  the  practicability  of  stopping  them,  the  Chief  Com- 


1857-58        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  281 

missioner  believes  that  he  could  with  a  reasonable  exercise  of  firmness 
and  discretion  stop  the  Mohurrum  procession  even  at  Delhi,  where  such 
processions  are  held  with  great  pomp  and  solemnity.  Under  the  same 
heading-  Colonel  Edvvardes  remarks  that  by  Act  i,  of  1856,  in  which  the 
exhibition  of  obscene  pictures  is  interdicted,  an  exemption  is  made  in 
favour  of  idols.  The  Chief  Commissioner  concurs  in  thinking  that  any 
such  exemption  should  be  abrogated.  If  any  idol  he  exhibited  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  violate  public  decency  openly  the  law  should  take 
effect.  .   .  . 

13.  The  various  points  named  for  discussion  have  now  been  reviewed. 
Before  concluding  this  letter  I  am  to  state  that  Sir  J.  Lawrence  has  been 
led,  in  common  with  others,  since  the  occurrence  of  the  av.'ful  events  of 
1857,  to  ponder  deeply  on  what  may  be  the  faults  and  shortcomings  of 
the  British  as  a  Christian  nation  in  India.  In  considering  topics  such 
as  those  treated  of  in  this  despatch  he  would  solely  endeavour  to  ascer- 
tain what  is  our  Christian  duty.  Having  ascertained  that  according  to 
our  erring  lights  and  conscience,  he  would  follow  it  out  to  the  uttermost, 
undeterred  by  any  consideration.  If  we  address  ourselves  to  this  task, 
it  may,  with  the  blessing  of  Providence,  not  prove  too  difficult  for  us. 
Measures  have,  indeed,  been  proposed  as  essetilial  to  be  adopted  by 
a  Christiaii  Government  which  would  be  trtily  difficult  or  impossible 
of  execution.  But  on  closer  consideration  it  will  be  fou7id  that  such 
measures  are  not  enjoined  by  Christianity,  but  are  contrary  to  its 
spirit.  Sir  John  Lawrence  does,  I  am  to  state,  entertain  the  earnest 
belief  that  all  those  measures  which  are  really  and  truly  Christian  can 
be  carried  out  in  India,  not  only  without  danger  to  British  rule,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  with  every  advantage  to  its  stability.  Christiati  things 
done  in  a  Christian  way  will  never,  the  Chief  Commissioner  is  con- 
vinced, alienate  the  heathen.  About  such  thiiigs  there  are  qualities 
which  do  not  provoke  nor  excite  distrust,  nor  harden  to  resistance. 
It  is  when  unchristian  things  are  done  in  the  name  of  Christianity, 
or  when  Christian  things  are  done  in  an  tctichristian  way,  that  mis- 
chief and  danger  are  occasioned.  The  difficulty  is,  amid  the  political 
complications,  the  conflicting  social  considerations,  the  fears  and  hopes 
of  self-interest  which  are  so  apt  to  mislead  human  judgment,  to  discern 
clearly  what  is  imposed  upon  us  by  Christian  duty  and  what  is  not. 
Having  discerned  this,  we  have  but  to  put  it  into  practice.  Sir  John  Law- 
rence is  satisfied  that  within  the  territories  committed  to  his  charge  he 
can  carry  out  all  those  measures  which  are  really  matters  of  Christian 
duty  on  the  part  of  the  Government.  And,  further,  he  believes  that  such 
measures  will  arouse  no  danger  ;  will  conciliate  instead  of  provoking  ; 
and  will  subserve  the  ultimate  diffusion  of  the  truth  among  the  people. 

14.  Finally,  the  Chief  Commissioner  would  recommend  that  such 
measures  and  policy,  having  been  deliberately  determined  on  by  the 
Supreme  Government,  be  openly  avowed  and  universally  acted  upon 
throughout  the  empire  ;  so  that  there  may  be  no  diversities  of  practice, 
no  isolated,  tentative,  or  conflicting  efforts,  which  are,  indeed,  the  surest 


282  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1857-58 

means  of  exciting  distrust;  so  that  the  people  may  see  that  we  have  no 
sudden  or  sinister  designs  ;  and  so  that  we  may  exhibit  that  harmony 
and  uniformity  of  conduct  which  befits  a  Christian  nation  striving  to  do 
its  duty. 

15.  In  submitting  the  present  despatch  I  am  instructed  to  state  that 
the  original  ot  Colonel  Edwardes'  memorandum  has  been  already  for- 
warded by  him  to  a  high  quarter  in  England,  to  be  made  use  of  if  occa- 
sion should  require  ;  and  that  therefore  the  Chief  Commissioner  would 
suggest  the  expediency  of  transmitting  home  a  copy  of  this  Report  as 
soon  as  may  be  conveniently  practicable. 

R.  Temple, 
Secretary  to  Chief  Commissioner,  Punjab. 

There  are  a  few  passages  in  this  noble  document  which  are  not 
perhaps  quite  consistent  with  the  spirit  of  toleration  as  it  has  now 
come  to  be  understood.  It  would  be  strange  if  it  were  not  so,  for 
the  spirit  01  toleration  is  essentially  progressive,  and  it  has  made 
immense  strides  in  the  quarter  of  a  century  which  has  passed  since 
Sir  John  Lawrence's  words  were  written.  But  its  essentials  are  all 
there,  and  Sir  John  Lawrence's  calm  statesmanship,  and  simpler 
and  truer  views  of  Christianity,  as  is  evidenced  more  particularly  in 
the  memorable  sentences  which  I  have  ventured  to  print  in  italics, 
saved  him  from  the  mistakes  and  dangers  into  which  the  more  fervid 
temperament  of  Edwardes  and  some  of  his  friends  would  infallibly 
have  plunged  us.  Edwardes'  programme  would,  as  John  Lawrence 
was  fond  of  expressing  it,  have  'upset  the  coach.'  It  would  have 
been  essentially  unjust,  and,  as  such,  it  must  infallibly  have  re- 
tarded the  spread  of  true  Christianity.  And  it  was  this  conviction 
which  led  him,  some  years  afterwards,  when  it  was  his  business  as 
Governor-General  to  select  a  candidate  for  the  Lieutenant-Govern- 
orship of  the  Punjab,  to  postpone  the  otherwise  paramount  claims 
of  Edwardes  to  those  of  the  more  cool-headed  Donald  Macleod. 
We  have  seen  how  he  protected  the  Mosques  and  temples  which  in 
the  iconoclastic  zeal  aroused  by  the  Mutiny,  many  of  his  friends 
urged  him  to  destroy,  and  it  was  in  the  same  honourable  spirit  of 
toleration  that  when,  as  Governor-General,  he  found  that  the 
Mosque  at  Agra,  which  had  been  shut  up  after  the  Mutiny  on  the 
pretext  that  it  was  too  close  to  the  fort  and  might  be  used  to  serve 
the  purposes  of  a  popular  rising,  was  still  closed,  he  gave  orders  that 
it  should  be  at  once  thrown  open  and  restored  to  its  rightful  owners. 
And,  to  this  day,  the  names  of  John  Batten,  who,  as  Commissioner 
of  Agra,  brought  the  facts  to  his  notice,  and  of  '  Jan  Larens,'  who 
undid  the  injustice,  may  be  heard  in  the  daily  prayers  of  the  faithful 
in  the  Mosque,  and  afford  one  proof  more  that  it  is  toleration  and 


1S57-5S  JOHN   LAWRENCE   AS  A  PACIFICATOR.  283 

not  intolerance  which  strengthens  our  hold  upon  the  country,  and 
which  finds  its  way  to  the  heart  even  of  a  naturally  intolerant  people. 
The  date  of  the  above  document  was  April  21,  1858,  and  it  may 
be  remarked  here  that  it  was  at  about  the  same  time  that  the  sound 
sense  and  right  feeling  of  the  Queen  led  her,  in  the  same  spirit,  to 
protest  against  some  expressions  which  it  was  proposed  that  she 
should  use  in  assuming  the  direct  Government  of  India.  Lord 
Malmesbury  in  the  draft  of  the  Proclamation  which  he  presented 
to  her,  had  spoken  of  her  power  of  undermming  the  Indian  religions. 
To  this  expression  she  at  once,  and  strongly  objected,  and  proposed 
instead  an  admirable  sentence  to  the  effect  that  her  attachment  to 
her  own  religion  would  preclude  her  from  any  attempt  to  interfere 
with  the  religions  and  customs  of  the  natives  which  were  equally 
dear  to  them  ;  and  this  sentence  received  a  marked  and  happy 
prominence  in  the  Proclamation  as  it  was  ultimately  sanctioned  and 
published  in  India  on  October  17,  1858  : 

Firmly  relying  ourselves  (so  runs  the  Royal  Message)  on  the  truth  of 
Christianity  and  acknowledging  with  gratitude  the  solace  of  religion,  we 
disclaim  alike  the  right  and  the  desire  to  impose  our  convictions  on  any 
of  our  subjects.  We  declare  it  to  be  our  royal  will  and  pleasure  that 
none  be,  in  any  wise,  favoured,  none  molested  or  disquieted  by  reason  of 
their  religious  faith  or  observances,  but  that  all  shall  alike  enjoy  the  equal 
and  impartial  protection  of  the  law:  and  we  do  strictly  charge  and  en- 
join on  all  those  who  may  be  in  authority  under  us  that  they  abstain  from 
all  interference  with  the  religious  belief  or  worship  of  any  of  our  sub- 
jects, on  pain  of  our  highest  displeasure. 

These  noble  sentences  gave  equal  satisfaction  to  Lord  Canning 
and  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  ;  and  while  they  reserve  full  liberty  to 
Christian  missionaries,  they  are  also  the  Magna  Charta  of  religious 
liberty  to  all  the  creeds  and  races  of  India. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

RECOGNITION    OF  SERVICES. 

January  1858 — February  1859. 

Sir  John  Lawrence's  work  in  India  was  now  drawing  to  its  close. 
Peace  reigned  throughout  the  Punjab,  and  was  slowly  but  surely 
being  established  throughout  the  rest  of  the  peninsula.  The  chief 
difficulties  in  the  Punjab  had  been  settled  or  were  in  the  way  of 
settlement.  The  Government  of  India  had  already  passed  from  the 
Company,  which  had  so  long  and,  in  later  days  at  all  events,  so 
well  administered  it,  to  the  Crown,  with  whom  the  real  responsibility 
and  power  lay  ;  and  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  at  length  able  to  look 
forward,  in  the  distance,  to  the  rest  which  he  had  so  long  needed 
and  had  so  long  postponed.  The  congratulations  which  had  been 
crowding  in  upon  him  ever  since  the  fall  of  Delhi  he  had  received 
in  a  manner  which  was  thoroughly  characteristic  of  himself.  For 
instance,  in  reply  to  the  congratulations  of  John  Becher  on  No- 
vember 18,  1857,  he  says, 

As  for  myself,  the  best  reward  I  can  have  is  the  success  which  has 
crowned,  not  my  efforts  merely  but  those  of  us  all,  in  the  Punjab.  I  do 
not  expect  much,  and  therefore  shall  not  be  disappointed.  It  is  some- 
thing to  think  that  one  has  not  lived  in  vain,  and  has  proved  useful  in 
one's  generation. 

To  Bartle  Frcre  he  says  on  December  15  : — 

I  have  to  thank  you  for  your  kind  expressions  regarding  my  personal 
interests.  I  do  not  however  myself  anticipate  that  Scinde  will  be  joined 
to  the  Punjab,  at  any  rate  in  my  time.  I  am  ready  to  do  anything  I  can 
for  the  public  service,  and  so  long  as  I  hold  the  helm  here,  will  keep 
matters  straight,  under  God's  help.  But  I  am  growing  old  and  weary, 
and  often  think  that  the  time  is  approaching  when  I  ought  to  make  my 
bow  and  be  off.  Do  what  one  can,  little  real  progress  is  effected.  Gov- 
ernment ask  for  too  much  writing,  too  many  explanations,  too  many 
details,  and  when  all  these  are  supplied,  the  matter  is  often  postponed 
sine  die. 

284 


1858-59  RECOGNITION    OF   SERVICES.  285 

With  the  congratulations  had  come  honours,  though  not  so  fast 
and  thick  as  those  who  knew  best  what  Sir  John  Lawrence  had 
done,  felt  that  he  deserved.  In  December  1857  he  heard  from 
Lord  Panmure  that  he  was  to  be  made  a  Knight  Grand  Cross  of 
the  Bath,  'a  communication,'  said  Lord  Panmure,  'which  it  is  as 
satisfactory  to  Her  Majesty's  Government  to  make,  as  it  will  be  to 
the  public  in  general  when  it  becomes  known  ; '  while  Lord  Can- 
ning, in  making  the  official  announcement  to  him,  wrote  as 
follows  : — 

I  have  a  better  right  on  this  occasion  to  be  the  channel  through  which 
honours  from  the  Queen  shall  pass  to  you  than  I  had  two  years  ago. 
when  I  conveyed  to  you  your  earlier  dignity  in  the  Order  of  the  Bath — 
for,  assuredly,  nobody  knows  better  than  I  do  how  richly  this  increase 
of  distinction  is  deserved,  and  nobody  has  better  reason  to  be  thankful 
to  you  for  the  service  which  has  won  it,  or  is  more  glad  to  see  that 
service  acknowledged  in  the  highest  quarter. 

In  March  1858  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  informed  that  the  Free- 
dom of  the  City  of  London  had  been  conferred  upon  him,  and  in 
acknowledging  the  communication  he  used  these  words  : — 

I  trust  that  it  may,  one  day,  be  my  good  fortune  to  stand  in  the 
Guildhall,  and  thank  you  all  for  this  great  mark  of  your  consideration. 
Next  to  the  feeling  that  I  have  endeavoured,  under  most  difficult  circum- 
stances, to  do  my  duty  and  maintain  the  honour  and  interests  of  my 
country,  the  greatest  reward  that  I  could  desire  is  to  know  that  my 
fellow  countrymen  sympathise  with  and  acknowledge  my  labours. 

In  the  following  autumn  he  was  made  a  Baronet,  and  shortly 
afterwards  a  Privy  Councillor.  Lord  Stanley  said,  with  reference 
to  this  acknowledgment  of  his  services  : — 

I  have  only  leisure,  by  this  mail,  to  thank  you  for  your  letter,  and  to 
express  the  pleasure  it  gives  me  to  find  myself  in  official  relations  with 
•you.  You  will  see  that  Government  has  in  some,  though,  I  am  aware, 
in  but  an  inadequate  measure,  endeavoured  to  express  its  sense  of  the 
value  of  your  services  to  India  and  the  Empire.  I  trust  those  services 
are  not  ended,  and  that  what  is  now  offered  may  be  regarded  as  but  an 
instalment  of  what  is  your  due. 

Finding  from  the  tone  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  letters  that  he  was 
bent  on  returning  to  England  as  soon  as  he  could  do  so  with  hon- 
our, Lord  Stanley  wrote,  by  the  next  mail,  to  offer  him  a  seat  in  the 
newly  formed  Indian  Council. 

The  letter  I   received  from  you  by  last  mail  makes  it  impossible  to 


286  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

doubt  the  reality  of  your  wish  to  come  home,  when  the  state  of  India 
allows.  I  cannot  but  feel  that  this  is  to  the  public  a  misfortune,  and  I  am 
only  reconciled  to  the  idea  by  the  confident  expectation  I  entertain  that 
your  retirement  will  be  only  temporary,  and  that  it  will  restore  the 
strength  required  for  the  work  which  England  still  expects  at  your 
hands.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that  should  you  be  able  to  carry  out 
your  intention  of  retiring,  you  might  not  be  unwilling  to  give  your  aid 
(and  no  man  can  give  aid  so  valuable)  in  the  business  of  Indian  admin- 
istration at  home  ;  and  therefore,  on  the  chance  of  the  Punjab  settling 
down,  of  Lord  Canning  being  able  to  spare  you,  and  of  your  own  desire 
for  return  still  continuing,  I  have  included  your  name  in  the  proposed 
Council  of  India  here,  subject  to  the  Queen's  approval,  which  I  need  not 
say  is,  in  your  case,  a  mere  form.  .  .  . 

After  all,  notwithstanding  the  tone  of  your  letter,  and  notwithstanding 
my  personal  desire  to  have  you  as  a  colleague,  I  still  hope  that  you  may 
find  your  health  equal  to  a  continuance  of  your  present  duty,  in  which  I 
really  do  not  know  who  could  replace  you.  We  neither  of  us  thought  six 
years  ago  what  times  were  coming,  nor  that  the  Sikhs,  whom  we  then 
still  considered  as  the  danger  of  India,  were  to  be  its  safety.  I  am  quite 
aware  of  the  risk  we  run  even  now  from  their  numbers  and  courage. 
They  seem  to  have  stepped  at  once  into  the  place  of  the  Sepoy  army,  and 
to  be  acquainted  with  their  strength,  but  while  there  is  occupation  for 
them  I  fear  little.  The  trouble  will  begin  when  they  get  leisure  to  look 
round  and  speculate  about  the  future. 

The  change  in  the  Home  Government  of  India  is  greater  in  show  than 
in  reality.  The  new  Council  will  take  tiie  place  of  the  Directors,  with 
only  this  difference,  that  henceforth  the  Indian  minister  will  sit  with  them 
instead  of  apart.   .   .  . 

I  will  not  say  what  I  think  and  feel  about  the  part  you  have  played 
personally  in  the  trouble  of  this  and  last  year  ;  but  you  will  believe  me 
when  I  assure  you  that  of  all  my  recollections  of  Indian  or  other  travel, 
none  are  now  so  interesting  to  me  as  those  of  the  week  I  passed  in  your 
society  at  Lahore  before  joining  your  brother's  camp  at  Huzara. 

Believe  me,  very  sincerely  yours, 

Stanley. 

The  offer  thus  made  was  accepted  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  for  the 
ensuing  spring,  or  for  such  time  as  he  might  be  able  to  leave  India. 
But,  meanwhile,  the  higher  honour  of  the  Peerage,  at  which  Lord 
Stanley  had,  to  all  appearance,  hinted,  did  not  come.  Sir  Frederick 
Currie,  the  Chairman  of  the  Court  of  Directors,  had  not  ceased  alike 
in  his  official  and  private  capacity  to  urge  upon  the  Government 
that  a  Peerage  was  the  only  fitting  recognition  of  such  services  as 
John  Lawrence  had  rendered.  But  finding  that  Ministers  did  not 
seem,  at  present,  disposed  to  do  their  part,  he  resolved  that,  at  all 
events,  the  Court  of  Directors  should  do  theirs ;  and  by  almost 


1S58-59  RECOGNITION    OF    SERVICES.  287 

their  expiring  act,  they  passed  unanimously  a  resolution  which,  on 
August  25,  1858,  Vv'as  as  unanimously  confirmed  by  the  Court  of 
Proprietors,  in  behalf  of  one  of  the  last  and  most  distinguished  of 
their  servants. 

The  resolution  ran  as  follows  : — 

That,  in  recog'nition  of  the  eminent  merits  of  Sir  John  Laird  Mair 
Lawrence,  G.G.B.,  whose  prompt,  vigorous  and  judicious  measures 
crushed  an  incipient  mutiny  in  the  Punjab,  and  maintained  the  province 
in  tranquillity  during  a  year  of  almost  universal  convulsion  ;  and  who  by 
his  extraordinary  exertions  was  enabled  to  equip  troops  and  to  prepare 
munitions  of  war  for  distant  operations,  thus  mainly  contributing  to  the 
recapture  of  Delhi,  and  to  the  subsequent  successes  which  attended  our 
arms  ;  and  in  testimony  of  the  high  sense  entertained  by  the  East  India 
Company  of  his  public  character  and  conduct  throughout  a  long  and  dis- 
tinguished career,  an  annuity  of  2,000/.  be  granted  to  him,  the  same  to 
commence  from  the  date  when  he  may  retire  from  the  service. 

This  resolution  was  proposed  by  Sir  Frederick  Currie,  the  Chair- 
man of  the  Court,  an  old  friend  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  who,  it  will 
be  remembered,  had  been  acting  as  Resident  at  Lahore  before  the 
annexation  of  the  Punjab,  and  was  therefore  able,  alike  from  local 
and  personal  knowledge  to  speak  of  the  man  and  of  his  work.  It 
was  seconded  by  Captain  Eastwick,  the  Deputy  Chairman,  a  man 
who  was  as  yet  personally  unknown  to  Sir  John  Lawrence,  but  was 
to  prove  one  of  his  most  intimate,  perhaps  his  most  intimate  friend, 
from  the  day  of  his  return  from  India  right  on  to  that  .of  his  death. 
He  had  distinguished  himself  in  early  life  by  his  uncompromising 
opposition  to  the  high-handed  proceedings  of  Sir  Charles  Napier  in 
Scinde,  and  he  possessed  an  intimate  knov/ledge  of  the  natives  of 
that  part  of  India,  and  a  keen  sympathy  for  them.  I  quote  here  a 
few  sentences  from  his  speech  in  seconding  the  grant : — 

There  can  be  no  question  of  the  claims  and  merits  of  Sir  John  Law- 
rence. The  trumpet  of  his  fame  has  given  no  uncertain  sound.  Aniid 
the  group  of  illustrious  men  who.  have  been  brought  prominently  before 
the  eyes  of  the  public  during  the  late  terrible  convulsions  in  India,  Sir 
John  Lawrence,  like  Saul  of  old,  stands,  from  the  shoulders  and  upwards, 
iiigher  than  any  of  his  compeers.  The  public  voice  of  India  and  the 
public  voice  of  England  have  pronounced  their  verdict  in  language  not 
lo  be  mistaken  ;  and  the  only  feeling  is,  if  I  err  not,  a  feeling  of  surprise 
and  disappointment  that  earlier  and  more  decided  steps  have  not  been 
taken  to  mark  the  sense  of  the  country  with  respect  to  the  services  of 
him,  who  is  universally  allowed  to  hold  the  foremost  place  among  those 
who,  by  their  wisdom,  firmness,  and  h.eroic  conduct,  have,  under  God's 
blessing,  preserved  the  British  Empire  in  India.  .  .  .  We  have  seen  the 


288'  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

self-sacrificing'  labours  of  those  who  bear  the  heat  and  burden  of  the 
day  in  maintaining  that  empire,  and  we  believe  that  the  man  who  has 
fought  his  way  to  the  highest  eminence  there,  through  a  long  career  of 
honour  and  usefulness  ;  who  has  restored  peace  and  order  to  provinces, 
where  anarchy  and  bloodshed  reigned  ;  who  has  reconciled  warlike  and 
hostile  races  to  British  sway,  and  placed  the  resources  of  a  vast  kingdom 
at  the  disposal  of  the  British  Government  in  the  hour  of  her  greatest 
need,  has  as  fair  a  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  his  country  and  as  just  a  title 
to  the  highest  honours  of  the  Slate  as  the  proudest  representative  of 
hereditary  wealth,  or  the  most  favoured  partisan  of  a  parliamentary 
leader.  .  .  . 

To  my  mind  there  is  no  single  point  in  the  administration  of  the  Pun- 
jab, which  reflects  greater  lustre  on  Sir  John  Lawrence  and  those  asso- 
ciated with  him,  than  the  characters  of  the  men  who  have  been  trained 
and  given  to  the  public  services  under  their  supervision.  .  .  . 

It  was  his  implicit  confidence  in  his  subordinates  that  enabled  him 
•  not  only  resolutely  to  keep  order  in  the  Punjab,  but  to  hurl  every  avail- 
able soldier,  European  and  Sikh,  against  Delhi.'  .  .  . 

At  the  critical  moment,  Sir  John  Lawrence  threw  open  wider  the 
ranks  of  our  service,  and  gave  employment  to  all  who  would  enlist. 
Amid  the  universal  distrust  of  the  natives  of  India,  a  weaker  man  would 
have  hesitated  to  adopt  so  bold  a  measure  ;  the  tide  might  have  turned 
and  the  vessel  of  the  State  been  stranded  ;  but  we  all  know  the  result  of 
this  move  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  and  we  have  only  now  to  take  precau- 
tions against  the  returning  Sikh  wave.   .  .   . 

In  order  effectually  to  nip  incipient  mutiny  in  the  bud,  measures  of 
extreme  severity  were  necessary  on  some  occasions.  We  all  know  that 
revolutions  are  not  to  be  extinguished  with  rose  water.  But,  at  this  dis- 
tance of  time,  it  is  impossible  to  read  of  the  wholesale  destruction  of 
human  life  without  feelings  of  pain  and  sorrow.  I  will  mention  two 
facts,  which  will,  I  think,  show  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  himself  only 
sanctioned  such  severe  measures  from  imperious  necessity.  He  had  no 
desire  to  shed  unnecessary  blood,  but  acted  on  the  principle  of  stern, 
solemn,  retributive  justice.  After  the  capture  of  Delhi  and  Meerut,  his 
first  act  was  to  put  a  stop  to  civilians  exercising  the  power  of  hanging 
criminals  according  to  their  own  will  and  pleasure,  and  to  establish  a 
judicial  commission  to  try  all  offenders.  No  act  contributed  more  to  the 
restoration  of  confidence  among  the  natives,  and  to  the  tranquillity  of  the 
surrounding  districts.  We  also  know  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  was,  from 
the  first,  the  opponent  of  blind,  indiscriminate  vengeance,  and  the  strong 
advocate  of  amnesty,  to  include  all  except  the  murderers  in  cold  blood 
of  our  countrymen  and  countrywomen.  These  measures  show  that  he 
knew  how  to  temper  mercy  with  justice,  firmness  with  conciliation  ;  that 
he  could  be,  as  the  natives  say,  both  '  niirin''  and  ' gurm'  (soft  and  hot, 
or  gentle  and  severe),  which  is  the  only  way  to  rule  the  natives  of 
India.  .  .   . 

It  was  Mr.  Canning  who  stated  that  no  monarchy  in  Europe  had  pro- 


1858-59  RECOGNITION    OF   SERVICES.  289 

duced,  within  a  given  time,  so  many  men  of  the  first  talent  in  civil  and 
miHtary  life  as  India  within  the  same  period.  I  believe  Mr.  Canning 
spoke  the  truth.  And  among  the  eminent  statesmen  whom  India  has 
produced,  I  believe  few  names  will  hold  a  more  prominent  place  than 
that  of  Sir  John  Lawrence. 

The  honour  which  so  many  people  thought  was  due  to  Sir  John 
Lawrence  had,  in  May  1858,  been  conferred  on  the  fine  old  Com- 
mander-in-Chief who  had  recently  crowned  his  long  and  distin- 
guished career  by  the  recapture  of  Lucknow.  It  was  a  distinction 
which  was  thoroughly  deserved  ;  but  a  year  or  two  afterwards  Lord 
Clyde,  who  had  hoped  to  be  able  to  accompany  his  friend  to  Eng- 
land, meeting  him  in  London  at  the  door  of  the  Athenseum,  said  to 
him,  '  By  the  way,  John,  did  they  ever  offer  you  a  peerage  ?  They 
ought  to  have  made  you  a  peer  long  before  they  made  me.'  The 
same  modesty  and  simplicity  of  character  comes  out  so  well  in  a 
letter  written  by  Lord  Clyde  when  he  first  heard  of  the  honour 
which  was  in  store  for  him,  that  I  quote  an  extract  from  it  :  — 

July  12,  1S58. 

My  dear  Lawrence, — I  hope  you  continue  well  and  that  you  have 
good  news  from  Lady  Lawrence.  When  may  we  look  for  such  a  state 
of  affairs  as  will  admit  of  our  return  home  .''  I  have  been  informed  of 
Her  Majesty's  gracious  intention  to  raise  me  to  the  peerage.  This  is  a 
very  great  honour  ;  far  too  great  a  one  for  a  poor  soldier  of  fortune  like 
myself.  I  am  approaching  fast  the  age  assigned  to  the  life  of  man  by 
the  Psalmist.  I  have  neither  wife  nor  child.  I  have  plenty  of  money  ; 
and,  for  an  old  man,  I  have  no  wants.  I  have  had  but  one  hope  and 
one  ambition  from  the  termination  of  the  Crimean  service— to  have  a 
little  time  to  myself  between  the  camp  and  the  grave,  and  to  pass  that 
little  time  near  to  some  old  friends,  quiet  and  good  people,  who  live  in 
great  retirement  away  from  towns  and  the  bustle  of  life.  I  should  have 
been  very  grateful  to  have  been  left  with  my  military  rank  and  without 
any  other.  With  you,  my  dear  friend,  it  is  very  different  ;  you  are  still 
young  ;  you  have  a  wife  and  family  who  will  take  a  pride  and  pleasure 
in  seeing  you  ennobled,  and  this  will  be  a  true  happiness  to  you,  for  no 
man  has  worked  harder  for  their  sakes  than  you  have.  My  best  and 
kindest  wishes  attend  you. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

Colin  Campbfxl. 

The  reply  is  equally  characteristic  : — 

July  21,  1S5S. 

My  dear  Sir  Colin, — I   am  very  happy  to  hear  from  yourself  of  Her 
Majesty's  gracious  intentions  towards  you,  and  I  heartily  wish  that  you 
may  live  long  to  enjoy  your  honours  which  you  haveso  well  won.  Doubt- 
less, you  do  not  care  much  for  such  things  ;  still  as  a  mark  of  the  appre- 
voL.  II. — 19 


290  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1S58-59 

ciation  of  your  services,  they  will  be  acceptable.  I  have  not  myself 
heard  authoritatively  that  any  such  favours  are  intended  for  me.  If  they 
come  I  shall  receive  them  with  pleasure.  Otherwise,  I  am  too  much  of 
a  philosopher  to  vex  myself.  I  have  lived  long  enough  and  seen  suffi- 
cient to  teach  me  that  the  best  reward  any  man  can  have  is  the  feeling 
that  he  has  done  his  duty  to  the  best  of  his  ability. 

Sir  Frederick  Carrie,  not  knowing  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  was 
contemplating  an  early  return  to  England,  had  written  more  than 
once  to  tell  him  that  a  peerage  would  probably  be  offered  to  him, 
and  that  his  salary  as  Chief  Commissioner  had  been  increased  by 
the  Court  in  special  recognition  of  his  services.  Sir  John  Law- 
rence's answer  is  written  in  a  tone  of  just  appreciation  alike  of 
what  he  had  done  himself,  and  of  what  others  had  done  for  him, 
and  is  not  without  many  touches  of  biographical  interest  : — 

Murri  :  August  iS,  1858, 
My  dear  Currie, — I  have  to  thank  you  very  warmly  for  your  kind  and 
handsome  letter  of  July  2.  I  am  infinitely  obliged  to  you  for  the  kind- 
ness and  consideration  which  has  led  the  Court  at  your  suggestion  to 
increase  my  salary.  I  feel  grateful  to  the  Court  for  doing  so.  Still  it 
has  come  too  late  to  do  me  much  good.  I  have  long  been  ailing  and 
have  suffered  severely.  At  the  very  time  the  Mutiny  broke  out  I  was 
floored  by  a  frightful  attack  of  neuralgia.  I  am  now  subject  to  fre- 
quent attacks  of  the  head,  the  effects  of  a  long  residence  in  India  and 
hard  work.  With  the  exception  of  the  month  when  I  went  to  Calcutta, 
early  in  1856,  to  bid  Lord  Dalhousie  good-bye,  I  have  not  had  a  day's 
rest  in  nearly  sixteen  years.  No  human  being,  for  a  continuance,  can 
bear  the  wear  and  tear  of  my  post,  doing  the  duty  as  it  should  be  done 
with  no  greater  aid  than  I  receive,  and  not  break  down.  Year  by 
year  the  work,  instead  of  becoming  less  has  increased.  Business  has 
become  more  centralised  in  Calcutta  with  the  Governor-General.  Less 
has  been  left  to  the  local  authority,  and  more,  therefore,  has  to  be  re- 
ported. First,  the  whole  department  of  Public  Works  in  the  Punjab 
was  added  to  my  charge,  but  no  Secretary  was  allowed  me.  I  had  thus 
to  be  on  the  watch  and  endeavour  to  bring  into  control  a  set  of  officers 
who,  however  able  and  zealous,  had  long  worked  just  as  they  thought 
proper.  Now,  more  than  half  the  new  Bengal  army  has  been  raised, 
organised,  and  equipped  by  me.  Then,  the  Delhi  territory  has  been 
placed  under  me.  All  this  is  very  honourable  and  I  am  far  from 
shrinking  from  the  load  it  entails  ;  and  had  I  been  made  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  the  country  with  an  adequate  Staff  at  my  command,  I 
should  not  have  minded.  Paper  work  would  have  decreased  greatly, 
and  I  should  have  had  time  to  devote  to  the  real  duties  of  my  post.  But 
with  a  population  of  our  own  subjects  of  some  sixteen  millions,  besides, 
at- least,  seven  millions  more  of  those  of  independent  chiefs  to  look  after. 


1858-59  RECOGNITION    OF   SERVICES.  29I 

and  a  frontier  of  800  miles  with  wiiich  much  troublesome  work  in  Cabul 
is  connected,  I  have,  positively,  less  aid  at  my  command  than  the  General 
officer  of  a  Division  whose  duties  do  not  occupy  one  hour  of  the  day.  I 
once  asked  for  a  medical  officer  to  be  allowed  me,  who  would  act  in  the 
double  capacity  of  surgeon  and  private  secretary,  but  this  was  refused. 
My  wife  for  many  years  used  to  perform  the  latter  office  for  me.  Now 
that  she  has  gone  home,  I  get  it  done  in  the  best  way  I  can.  I  do  not 
say  all  this  because  I  am  discontented.  Such  is  not  the  case.  But  I  tell 
it  that  you  may  understand  why  I  find  it  necessary  to  go  hom^  as  well 
as  in  the  hope  that  whether  I  come  home  or  not,  some  change  may  be 
made.  It  would  cost  little  to  make  this  a  Lieutenant-Governorship  and 
place  it  on  a  proper  footing.  Indeed,  I  verily  believe  that  it  would  be  a 
saving.  Great  delay  would  be  avoided  and  more  vigour  would  be  in- 
fused into  every  Department.  Men  who  look  to  the  local  authority  for 
advancement  will  obey  that  authority's  behests. 

As  regards  the  Peerage,  it  is  with  much  reluctance  that  I  say  anything. 
If  Her  Majesty  shall  think  fit  to  recognise  my  services  in  this  manner,  I 
shall,  of  course,  be  highly  pleased.  But  I  cannot  but  hope  that,  in  that 
case,  any  pension  which  may  be  granted  will  be  extended  to  the  second 
generation.  I  am  now  too  old  and  too  worn  to  make  even  a  very  mod- 
erate fortune  for  my  eldest  son.  I  have  seven  children,  and  all  that  I  can 
do  is  to  leave  my  wife  and  them  a  very  humble  competence.  In  my  day 
I  have  had  more  work  than  pay.  The  legitimate  expenses  of  my  position 
are  considerable.  Moreover,  a  man  who  is  working  all  day  for  the  public 
cannot  give  much  thought  to  his  private  interests.  If  Lords  Gough  and 
Keane  deserved  that  their  pensions  should  descend  to  their  sons,  I  think 
I  may  say,  without  egotism,  that  a  similar  favour  might  be  conceded  to 
mine. 

Under  the  mercy  of  God,  the  loyalty  and  contentment  of  the  people  of 
the  Punjab  has  saved  India.  Had  the  Punjab  gone,  we  must  have  been 
ruined.  Long  before  reinforcements  could  have  reached  the  Upper 
Provinces,  the  bones  of  all  the  English  would  have  been  bleaching  in 
the  sun.  England  would  never  have  recovered  the  calamity  and  re- 
trieved our  power  in  the  East.  Had  the  country  not  been  well  governed, 
how  different  would  have  been  the  result !  But  the  people  have  not  only 
sided  with  us  but  have  furnished  thousands  of  soldiers  to  fight  our  bat- 
tles. At  this  moment  the  Punjabi  troops  in  our  ranks  of  one  kind  or  the 
other  must  closely  approximate  to  80,000  men.  In  no  one  case  has  a 
single  regiment  misbehaved.  On  the  contrary,  they  have  vied  in  bravery 
with  our  British  soldiers.  These  are  services  of  which  I  feel  I  have  some 
right  to  be  proud.  Few  men  in  India  have  been  more  severely  tried, 
and  surely  it  is  not  presumptuous  that  I  should  expect  some  reward. 
Nothing  could  be  more  grateful  to  my  feelings  than  one  which  would 
benefit  my  family.     For  myself,  I  have  as  much  as  I  want. 

I  was  glad  to  see  by  the  last  Overland  Mail  news  that  Henry's  son  has 
at  last  received  the  honours  due  to  his  father's  great  merits.  Henry's 
death  was  an  even  greater  calamity  to  his  country,  than  to  his  family. 


292  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

What  would  not  be  tlie  value  of  his  services  at  the  present  crisis  ?  We 
sorely  want  such  men.  We  have  not  yet  conquered  India.  And,  even 
when  this  has  been  accomplished,  a  still  harder  task — that  of  pacifying 
the  people  and  healing  old  wounds — is  before  us.  It  is  a  task  which  the 
bravest  and  best  may  shrink  from.  It  is  one  in  which  a  great  man  may 
break  his  heart  and  lose  his  life,  and  which,  even  should  he  by  God's 
help  accomplish  it,  will  never  be  appreciated. 

Thei^  were  many  men  who  prognosticated  for  Sir  John  Lawrence, 
and  that  too  at  no  distant  date,  higher  things  even  than  the  Peerage. 
It  had  been  rumoured  that  Lord  Canning,  partly,  as  the  result  of 
the  change  of  Ministry  in  England,  and,  partly,  owing  to  the  pro- 
longed strain  of  the  Mutiny — a  strain  which  must  have  told  all  the 
more  upon  him,  inasmuch  as,  with  all  his  noble  quaHties,  he  was 
wanting  in  one  of  the  most  essential  for  a  Governor-General  at  such 
times,  the  power  of  rapidly  despatching  work — would  not  serve  out 
his  time  ;  and  the  eyes  and  thoughts  of  many,  soldiers  as  well  as 
statesmen,  turned  instinctively  to  the  man  who,  broken  down  in 
health  though  he  was,  had  done  the  work  of  both  soldier  and  states- 
man, and,  during  the  recent  crisis,  had  practically  ruled  so  large  a 
part  of  India. 

But  Sir  John  Lawrence's  own  eyes  and  inclinations,  as  we  have 
seen,  were  turned  in  quite  another  direction.  The  heitnweh,  the 
yearning  to  see  wife  and  children  from  whom  he  had  so  long  been 
separated  ;  the  yearning  for  repose — that  word  of  which  he  could 
hardly  be  said  to  know  the  meaning,  for  he  had  not  tasted  it  for 
sixteen  years  past — were  strong  upon  him.  Above  all,  the  threat- 
ening of  congestion  of  the  brain,  his  total  inability  at  times  even  to 
collect  his  thoughts,  told  him  in  language  that  was  not  to  be  mis- 
taken, that  if  he  hoped  ever  to  be  able  to  work  hard  again,  he  must 
take  rest  at  once. 

I  am  very  sick  and  fairly  used  up  and  want  to  go  home  (he  says  to  one 
of  his  friends).  So  long  as  I  am  able  I  will  stay  at  my  post  and  do  what 
I  can.  But  here  is  no  child's  play.  To  destroy  these  mutineers,  and 
place  our  power  upon  a  proper  footing  requires  great  ability,  much  force 
of  character,  and  full  powers  concentrated  in  one  person.  You  can  have 
little  idea  how  much  the  best  and  wisest  out  here  are  dispirited,  to  use 
no  stronger  term.  Here  we  are,  nineteen  months  after  the  breaking  up 
of  the  war,  scarcely  with  our  heads  above  water. 

'  I  will  go  home,'  Sir  John  Lawrence  used  often  to  say  in  con- 
versation, 'and  turn  grazier  or  farmer  in  some  quiet  corner.' 
Nevertheless  the  bare  idea  of  greater  work  to  be  done  and  wider 
responsibility  to  be  faced,  acted  upon  him  at  times  as  does  a  cordial 


1858-59  RECOGNITION   OF   SERVICES.  293 

on  the  worn-out  mountaineer  who,  having  fancied  that,  on  topping 
an  eminence,  he  will  have  reached  his  destination,  finds  that  it  still 
lies  many  a  weary  climb  onward,  and  that  he  has  to  start  afresh. 

I  am  sorry  for  Lord  Canning  (he  says  to  Montgomery),  and  hope  he 
may  weather  the  storm.  I  have  no  wish  to  be  Governor-General, 
though  I  would  not  refuse  if  the  post  were  offered  to  me.  Home  and  a 
moderate  pension  would  suit  me  much  better.  I  am  getting  old  and  stiff 
and  do  not  feel  that  I  am  half  the  man  I  formerly  was.  You  appear  to 
be  '  an  evergreen.' 

A  remark,  I  may  add,  which  seems  to  me  as  true  at  the  moment 
when  I  am  writing,  as  it  was  twenty-three  years  ago,  \yhen  Sir  Robert 
Montgomery  was  still  Chief  Commissioner  of  Oude  and  his  corre- 
spondent was  still  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Punjab. 

To  Sir  Colin  Campbell,  who,  like  many  others,  had  expressed  a 
hope  that  he  might  see  Sir  John  Lawrence,  at  no  distant  date,  Gov- 
ernor-General of  India,  he  writes  back  : — 

Many  thanks  for  your  last  very  kind  letter.  I  do  not,  however,  think 
there  is  much  chance  of  my  succeeding  Lord  Canning  should  he  go 
home,  consequent  on  the  change  of  Ministry.  The  Governor-General- 
ship is  too  good  a  post  for  a  fellow  like  me.  It  will  more  likely  be  given 
to  some  great  man  at  home.  However,  this  will  not  put  me  out.  My 
present  wishes  are  to  see  all  safe  and  well,  so  as  to  go  home  next  Febru- 
ary. I  shall  then  have  served  twenty-nine  years,  during  which  time  I 
shall  have  done  a  fair  share  of  hard  work. 

But  if  John  Lawrence  was  to  go  home  either  temporarily  or  per- 
manently, who  was  to  be  his  substitute  or  his  successor  .''  On  this 
subject  he  was  naturally  very  anxious  ;  and  a  letter  to  his  old  friend 
Lewin  Bowring,  then  Private  Secretary  to  Lord  Canning,  shows  in 
which  direction  his  wishes  turned. 

My  friend  Montgomery  is  still  making  constant  pulls  on  me  for  civil 
officers  for  Oude.  He  has  lately  asked  me  for  three  more.  I  have 
agreed  to  give  him  one,  young  Crommelin,  who  is  now  at  Gujerat.  I 
hope  that  no  more  of  my  men  will  be  drafted  away.  I  have  already 
given  a  great  many,  and  am,  I  assure  you,  very  hard  up.  Several  offi- 
cers, and  some  of  them  good  men,  are  going  home  this  cold  weather.  If 
I  get  a  bad  or  even  an  indifferent  officer  in  charge  of  a  District,  all  must 
go  wrong.  The  mischief  which  may  be  done  in  six  months  is,  very 
often,  not  cured  in  as  many  years.  I  am  afraid  I  must  go  home  for  a 
year  myself.  I  have  been,  gradually  but  surely,  breaking  down  for  the 
last  three  years.  I  have  half  lost  my  eyesight,  and  suffer  much  from  the 
head.  The  work  here  is  excessive,  and  the  assistance  at  my  disposal  is 
not  sufficient.     The  constant  grind  is  too  great  for  any  man.     If  I  get 


294  ■  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

better,  I  shall  come  out  in  the  cold  weather  of  1859,  D.v.  But  some  rest 
I  feel  I  must  have,  to  save  myself  from  a  total  breakdown. 

I  wish  you  could  try  and  ascertain  who  will  '  act '  for  me.  I  should 
like  Montgomery  to  be  the  man  if  he  could  be  spared.  Unless  my 
loctifn  ic7iens  be  a  really  good  workman  and  good  fellow  to  boot,  all 
will  go  wrong.  I  feel  very  loth  to  go,  lest  anything  should  go  wrong  in 
my  absence.     But  the  doctors  say  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary. 

P.S. — Oude  ought  to  be  settled  by  January  next,  the  time  when  I  want 
to  go.  If  necessary,  I  would  stay  a  month  longer.  There  can  be  no 
question  as  to  the  superior  importance  of  the  Punjab  to  Oude.  The  work 
here  will  always  be  double  that  of  Oude  ;  and  the  frontier  alone  makes 
this  charge  of  the  greatest  consequence  to  the  general  interests  of  the 
Empire.  Should  there  be  any  row  here  or  any  great  danger  impending, 
I  would  remain,  at  any  risk. 

Meanwhile  Lord  Canning,  hearing  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  ap- 
proaching departure,  had  written  a  letter,  in  which  he  expressed,  in  the 
v/armest  terms,  his  regret  for  the  temporary  loss  of  his  '  invaluable 
assistance  and  support,'  and  begged  for  his  frank  opinion  as  to  the 
claims  of  various  possible  successors — Montgomery,  Edwardes, 
Frere,  and  others. 

There  is  no  man  (says  the  Governor-General)  in  these  Provinces  or  in 
Bengal  who  is  suited  to  the  work.  Indeed  the  number  of  officers  qualified 
for  the  highest  appointments  in  every  branch  of  the  Government  is 
lamentably  small  compared  with  the  present  need  of  them,  when  Oude, 
the  North-West  Provinces  and  the  Punjab  have  all  to  be  supplied  with 
heads.  I  beg  you  to  write  to  me  fully  and  unreservedly  all  that  occurs 
to  you  on  the  matter. 

This  gave  Sir  John  Lawrence  a  free  field,  and  the  result  was  one 
of  those  vigorous  yet  impartial  characterisations,  such  as  we  have 
often  seen  him  giving  to  Lord  Dalhousie. 

Murri  :  September  18,  1858. 
My  Lord, — I  did  not  answer  your  Lordship's  letter  of  the  6th  on 
receipt,  for  I  wished  to  think  well  over  the  subject  to  which  it  related. 
As  regards  myself,  I  can  only  say  that  I  would  not  wish  to  go  home,  did 
not  the  state  of  my  health  urgently  call  for  such  a  step.  I  have  suffered, 
for  some  years,  from  constant  attacks  of  the  head,  and  have  been  more 
than  once  on  the  point  of  death.  In  April  last  year,  I  had  a  severe 
attack  of  neuralgia,  and  at  the  time  the  Mutiny  broke  out  was  very  ill 
indeed  ;  scarcely  able,  I  may  say,  to  raise  my  head  at  times  from  par- 
c.xysms  of  pain.  As  the  emergency  increased  I  got  better.  I  have,  now 
again,  for  some  months  been  attacked  by  head  symptoms,  which  render 
heavy  work  irksome  and  even  distressing.  And  my  medical  advisers 
tell  me  that,  unless  I  have  some  rest,  I  may  have  an  attack  of  paralysis  ; 


l8s8-59  RECOGNITION    OF   SERVICES.  295 

but  that  a  year's  rest  would  set  me  all  right.  It  is  now  nearly  sixteen 
years  since  I  was  last  in  England,  and,  during  that  period,  I  have  only 
been  absent  from  my  work  for  the  single  month  when  I  went  to  Calcutta 
to  bid  Lord  Dalhousie  good-bye  in  1856.  I  mention  these  matters  that 
your  Lordship  may  see  that  I  really  do  require  a  change.  Nevertheless, 
should  danger  threaten  when  the  time  arrives  for  my  departure,  come 
what  may,  I  shall  be  ready  to  remain  at  my  post.  I  will  leave  you  to 
judge  whether  I  can  go  or  not. 

As  regards  my  successor,  I  would  strongly  recommend  that  Mr. 
Montgomery  be  the  man.  He  knows  the  country  and  the  people.  He 
is  liked  and  respected  by  both  European  officers  and  the  natives,  and  is, 
I  am  sure,  the  very  best  selection  that  could  be  made.  There  can  be  no 
question  as  to  the  relative  importance  of  the  Punjab  and  Oude.  More- 
over, arrangements  for  the  management  of  Oude  are,  to  my  mind,  feasible 
by  which  Montgomery  could  be  spared.  The  work  of  the  Punjab  is  at 
present  too  much  for  Montgomery.  It  is  too  much  for  any  officer,  if  it 
be  done  properly.     But  here  again  a  change  will  not  be  difficult. 

I  had  always  hoped  that  Lord  Dalhousie's  proposal  to  make  the 
Punjab  a  Lieutenant-Governorship  would  have  been  sanctioned.  Even 
when  the  Home  authorities  demurred,  I  expected  that  a  little  explana- 
tion would  have  removed  the  difficulty.  It  was  not  done,  and  I  did  not 
think  it  proper  to  move  in  the  matter.  Now,  however,  that  the  allow- 
ances of  a  Lieutenant-Governor  have  been  given  me,  and  that  I  am  about 
to  go  away — perhaps  for  good — I  do  not  think  that  my  motives  can  be 
misunderstood,  when  I  urge  that  this  measure  be  carried  out.  The 
additional  expense  will  be  trifling,  while  the  relief  to  the  chief  officer 
will  be  great.  It  will  save  much  paper  work  and  many  '  references,' 
and  afford  leisure  for  important  work.  The  additional  Staff  at  the  dis- 
posal of  a  Lieutenant-Governor  relieves  him  of  much  petty  correspond- 
ence, which,  however,  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  must  be  attended  to.   .   .  . 

With  these  changes,  and  the  transfer  of  the  new  Punjab  corps  to  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  Mr.  Montgomery  will  find  his  post  as  agreeable 
as  it  will  be  honourable.  Without  such  changes  I  despair  of  any  officer 
being  found  equal  to  its  demands.  I  have  had  peculiar  advantages.  I 
have  been  in  the  Punjab  now  for  nearly  twelve  years,  and  everything 
connected  with  the  administration  has  grown  up  under  me.  If  I  have 
broken  down  under  the  work,  I  think  it  may  be  fairly  assumed  that  a 
modification  of  the  system  is  necessary.  Montgomery  is  an  officer 
niuch  more  suited  for  the  administration  of  a  new  country,  than  for  a 
Council.  He  is  a  man  of  action  rather  than  of  deliberation.  In  Calcutta 
lie  will  be  thrown  away.  WMth  the  improved  position  in  the  Punjab, 
and  the  certainty  that  I  would  not  return,  I  am  sure  he  would  prefer  the 
post  to  Calcutta,  or  to  Oude. 

If  Montgomery  comes  to  the  Punjab,  an  officer  for  Oude  will  be  re- 
quired. I  do  not  think  your  Lordship  will  find  a  better  one  than  Mr. 
(jeorge  Barnes,  the  present  Commissioner  of  the  Cis-Sutlej  Division. 
Barnes  is  an  officer  of  great  ability,  and   of  extensive  and  varied  civil 


296  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

experiences.  He  is  peculiarly  qualified  to  deal  with  the  difficult  subject 
of  the  landed  tenures  in  Oude,  which  I  consider  will  be  the  main  diffi- 
culty in  tranquillising  that  Province.  He  has  temper,  tact,  and  a  kindly 
sympathy  towards  the  natives,  while  there  is  no  want  of  vigour  in  him. 

Macleod  and  Thornton  are  both  able  men,  but  neither  of  them  is  well 
suited  to  be  the  chief  civil  authority  in  a  new  country.  Both  would  be 
content  and  happy  with  Montgomery  as  their  Chief,  whereas  neither 
would  be  so  well  satisfied  with  Barnes,  Edwardes,  or  Frere  over  them. 

I  come  now  to  Colonel  Edwardes  and  Mr.  Frere.  The  former  is  an 
officer  of  great  capacity.  Whatever  he  does  is  done  well.  But  he  never 
received  any  regular  training  as  a  civil  officer  and  has  not  the  faculty  of 
rapidly  disposing  of  public  business.  Edwardes,  in  short,  is  a  better 
political  than  civil  officer.  With  due  training  in  his  youth,  he  would 
have  done  credit  to  any  post  in  India. 

Next  to  Montgomery,  I  think  Mr.  Frere  would  probably  make  the 
best  civil  governor  for  the  Punjab.  I  do  not  know  him  personally,  but 
he  bears  a  high  character  for  administrative  ability.  The  objections  to 
him  appear  to  me  to  be  these.  He  is  a  Bombay  civilian,  and  therefore 
would  be  hardly  so  acceptable  to  Bengali  officers  as  one  of  this  Presi- 
dency. He  has  no  knowledge  of  the  Sikhs  nor  of  the  Punjab  system  of 
administration,  and  his  policy,  as  regards  the  frontier  tribes  and  chiefs 
beyond  our  frontier,  would,  I  believe,  be  different  to  that  which  we  have 
hitherto  pursued.  In  all  these  points,  he  would  not  answer,  I  think,  so 
well  as  Montgomery.  With  the  latter  in  the  Punjab,  Edmonstone  in 
the  North-West,  and  Barnes  in  Oude,  I  venture  to  believe  that  your 
Lordship  would  do  well.  I  have  now  written  to  your  Lordship  as  freely 
and  unreservedly  as  possible.  I  have  omitted  nothing  which  strikes  me 
as  of  any  importance. 

Finding  how  hard  pressed  his  lieutenant  was,  Lord  Canning  did 
all  he  could  to  make  his  position  more  tolerable  during  the  few 
months  which  remained.  He  begged  him  at  once  to  appoint  a 
Private  Secretary,  and  to  add  any  other  officer  to  his  Staff  who 
would  ease  his  labotirs.  The  boon  was  one  which  might  have  been 
conferred  upon  him  with  advantage  at  any  time  during  the  last 
eight  years,  and  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  conferred  willingly  had 
John  Lawrence,  in  his  insatiable  hunger  for  work,  cared  to  press 
his  claims  for  relief.  The  long  talked  of  change  too  in  the  admin- 
istration of  the  Punjab,  which  had  been  advocated  by  Lord  Dal- 
housie  before  his  departure,  was,  at  last,  carried  out  ;  and  the  first 
'  Chief  Commissioner  '  of  the  Punjab,  passed,  as  of  indubitable  right, 
into  the  position  of  its  first '  Lieutenant-Governor.'  The  change  was 
made  too  late  for  Sir  John  Lawrence  himself  to  profit  much  by  it. 
But  it  was  an  honourable  distinction,  and  was  made  more  honour- 
able still,  by  the  arrangement  which  was  now  formally  sanctioned 


1858-59  RECOGNITION   OF   SERVICES.  297 

that  the  Delhi  district  should  be  included  in  the  new  Lieutenant- 
Governorship  ;  the  district  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  saved  to 
the  Empire,  under  such  unparalleled  difficulties,  and  had,  in  earlier 
life,  administered  with  such  notable  success. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  valued  the  change  of  status  chiefly  as  it  eased 
the  way  for  his  substitute  or  his  successor,  lessening  his  labours 
and  increasing  his  powers  for  good  ;  and,  though  he  felt  that  the 
temptation  held  out  to  him  to  return  at  the  end  of  a  year,  should  his 
health  permit  it,  was  much  increased  thereby,  he  offered  to  bind 
himself  definitely  not  to  do  so,  if  Montgomery,  the  man  of  his 
choice,  demurred  to  filling  so  responsible  and  eminent  a  post  unless 
it  was  to  be  his  in  permanence.  In  a  note  headed  '  very  private,' 
he  writes  thus  to  Montgomery  on  the  subject : — 

I  do  hope  that  the  Governor-General  will  send  you  here  as  my  suc- 
cessor. I  am  sure  that  you  will  be  the  best  man  for  tlie  post.  You  will 
get  on  with  the  miHtary,  be  popular  with  the  chiefs  and  lower  classes,  and 
maintain  the  system  hitherto  in  force.  I  told  the  Governor-General  that, 
in  order  to  facilitate  your  coming  here,  I  would,  if  necessary,  engage 
not  to  return.  This  I  had  no  wish,  otherwise,  to  do.  For  it  is  just  pos- 
sible that  circumstances  might  happen  which  would  induce  me  to  come 
back;  particularly  if  the  Home  Government  desired  it.  Still  I  would 
run  this  risk  for  your  sake.  But  pray  keep  this  to  yourself.  I  think  it 
right  to  let  you  know  how  the  land  lies,  in  case  the  Governor-General 
alludes  to  the  subject. 

In  the  same  spirit  of  anxious  care  for  others,  he  pressed  once 
more  for  the  honorary  recognition  of  the  services  of  his  subordi- 
nates. He  had  never  ceased  to  urge  their  claims  in  documents  of 
every  kind,  official,  demi-official  and  private  ;  and  now  that  he  was 
himself  a  G.C.B.,  a  Baronet,  a  Privy  Councillor  and  a  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  and  was  about  to  leave  the  country,  he  wrote  to  Lord 
Stanley  in  terms  which  he  felt  sure  would  receive  an  adequate 

response. 

Murri  :  September  23,  1S5S. 

My  dear  Lord  Stanley, — This  morning  I  received  your  note  of  .A.ugust 
9,  through  Lord  Elphinstone.  I  beg  to  thank  Her  Majesty's  Ministers 
for  their  recognition  of  my  services.  I  only  wish  I  had  health  and 
strength  to  enable  me  to  hold  on  and  assist  in  restoring  our  position  in 
India.  For  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  very  anxious  task  is  still  before 
us. 

I  hope  that,  on  a  fitting  occasion,' you  will  not  forget  the  officers  who 
have  contributed  so  much  to  preserve  the  peace  in  the  Punjab  ;  the  men 
to  whom  I  am  so  greatly  indebted  for  tlie  success  of  my  administration, 
and  who  rallied  round  me  so  well  when  matters  looked  blackest. 


298  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

In  my  'Report'  on  what  took  place  in  the  Punjab  I  have  endeavoured 
to  do  them  justice.  Had  it  not  been  for  men  Hke  Robert  Montgomery, 
Herbert  Edwardes,  Neville'Chamberlain,  Mr.  Frere,  the  Commissioner 
of  Scinde,  George  Barnes,  Arthur  Roberts,  George  Ricketts,  and  others, 
we  could  never  have  weathered  the  storm.  In  giving  them  the  fitting 
recognition  for  their  merits,  the  British  Government  will  do  much  to 
strengthen  good  government  in  India,  and  will  confer  a  great  obligation 
on  me. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  left  Murri  early  in  October.  He  had  been 
there  throughout  the  hot  season  ;  for  the  remonstrances  of  Richard 
Temple,  who  was  working  for  him  at  Lahore,  had  prevented  his 
coming  down  thither  at  a  time  when  the  heat  might,  very  probably, 
have  been  fatal  to  him.  *  I  gather,'  writes  Temple,  *  that  you  are 
thinking  of  coming  down  to  Lahore.  As  one  of  your  strongest 
friends,  I  entreat  you  not  to  do  so.  Remember  your  illness  in 
1854.  You  are  not  quite  well  at  present  I  fear.  Your  coming 
down  here  is  not  necessary.  It  will  only  make  you  ill,  and  cui 
bono  ?  All  that  can  be  done  shall  be  done,  though  with  our  Finan- 
cial Commissioner  (the  "Cunctator,"  it  seems,  was  true  to  his  name) 
things  must  go  more  or  less  wrong.  But  even  your  Highness'  pres- 
ence will  not  improve  him  ! ' 

Two  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  nephews,  who  had  just  come  out  to 
India,  Sir  Alexander  Lawrence,  eldest  son  of  Sir  Henry,  and 
Charles  Bernard,  who  has  since  risen  to  high  distinction,  had  been 
staying  with  him  at  Murri.  Their  uncle  sent  for  them  as  soon  as 
they  arrived  at  Bombay,  that  he  might  *  see  what  he  could  make  of 
them,'  and  from  a  couple  of  letters  to  his  sister  Letitia,  which  have 
fortunately  been  preserved,  I  extract  a  few  sentences  which,  from  a 
domestic  and  personal  point  of  view,  are  not  without  their  interest. 

Rawul  Pindi ;  May  21,  1858. 
My  dearest  Letty, — I  was  greatly  grieved  to  find  by  Harriets  last  letter 
that  you  have  been  very  ill.  May  God  grant  that  this  may  find  you  quite 
recovered  !  I  hope  you  will  go  about  with  Harrie.  Change  of  air  and 
scene  will  be  sure  to  do  you  much  good.  Alex  and  Charley  are  with  me. 
They  are  both  very  nice  young  fellows  and  general  favourites.  The  two 
differ  very  widely  in  character  and  idiosyncrasy.  But  both  are  gentle- 
manlike, good-tem.pered,  and  well  conditioned.  They  are  two  of  the  best 
specimens  of  young  England  that  I  have  seen  for  many  a  day.  I  am  very 
glad  they  have  come  up  to  me.  It  is  very  pleasant  having  them.  Rich- 
ard (his  brother),  you  will  be  sorry  to  hear,  has  had  a  bad  attack  of  liver. 
It  was  a  very  violent  one,  and  we  had  no  medical  man  ;  only  what  is 
called  in  this  country  a  '  native  doctor'  a  fat  old  fellow  who  enjoys  60/. 
a  year.     We  however  held  a  Council  of  War,  cupped  poor  Dick  twice, 


1S5S-59  RECOGNITION    OF   SERVICES.  299 

and  then  put  on  fifty  leeches.  We  reduced  him  greatly,  but  we  also  re- 
duced the  inflammation.  By  the  time  a  medical  man  arrived  he  was  out 
of  danger.  I  then  packed  him  off  to  Murri  to  Nelly's  care.  We  followed 
quietly  to  this  place.  It  is  rather  hot  here  but  healthy;  and  I  am  close 
to  the  telegraph  wires,  which,  in  these  sad  times,  is  of  great  importance. 
I  am  wonderfully  well.  The  excitement  seems  to  keep  me  well.  Except 
that  my  sight  is  rather  dim,  I  am  as  equal  to  work  as  ever.  I  shall  not 
however  sigh  when  the  time  comes  to  go  home.  If  God  spares  me,  I 
shall  be  well  pleased  to  see  you  all  again.  In  the  mean  time,  the  more 
busily  I  am  employed  the  quicker  does  time  appear  to  fly.  Harrie  writes 
me  charming  accounts  of  the  children  and  her  reception.  Dear  little 
woman  !  What  happiness  it  must  have  been  to  her  to  see  her  seven 
children  all  around  her!  My  last  letter  was  from  Liverpool.  She  was 
then  on  her  way  to  Ireland.  I  expect  Edwardes  two  days  hence  for  a 
flying  visit.  He  proposes  going  home  in  November,  and  is  to  undertake 
a  life  of  dear  Henry.  It  will  be  to  him  a  real  labour  of  love.  I  don't 
know  any  man  who  will  do  it  more  justice  than  Edwardes.  I  hope  to 
leave  India  next  February  and  to  stay  at  home  among  you  all  for  the  rest 
of  my  life.  Ever  your  loving  brother, 

^  John  Lawrence. 

To  add  to  his  other  anxieties,  there  was  a  severe  outbreak  of 
cholera  at  Murri  during  the  hot  weather.  It  attacked  chiefly  the 
European  soldiers.  The  welfare  of  the  soldier  was  ever  dear  to 
John  Lawrence's  heart,  and  one  who  has  good  reason  to  know,  tells 
me  that  he  visited  the  hospital  almost  daily  with  his  brother,  and  'did 
all  that  he  could  to  help  the  sick  and  dying,  never  giving  a  thought 
to  the  risk  he  was  running,  and  heedless  of  the  doctors'  warnings, 
who  were  anxious  that  he  should  not  thus  expose  himself.'  The 
mortality  at  Peshawur  was  also  terrible,  and  many  earnest  letters 
passed  between  Sydney  Cotton  and  John  Lawrence  on  a  subject  in 
which  they  were  both  so  keenly  interested.  One  of  these  I  quote 
as  illustrative  of   John  Lawrence's   views,  and   not  without  some 

permanent  value. 

Muni:  September  4,  1S5S. 
My  dear  General, — I  return  the  documents  received  with  your  note  of 
the  4th.  The  information  they  contain  is  very  sad,  and  it  behoves  all 
those  in  power  to  consider  the  matter  well,  and  to  try  to  discover  what 
are  the  real  causes  of  the  terrible  mortality  among  our  European  troops. 
No  man  feels  a  stronger  sympathy  than  I  do  for  these  poor  fellows,  or 
would  do  more  to  help  them.  But  I  have  a  strong  conviction  that  more 
depends  on  habit  of  life  than  even  on  climate.  While  I  readily  admit 
that  the  percentage  of  mortality  will,  to  a  certain  extent,  depend  on 
climate,  I  believe  that  close  and  careful  observation  would  prove  that 
more  European  soldiers  are  annually  destroyed  by  the  way  in  which  they 
live,  than  by  the  climate.     If  climate  indeed  is  the  sole  main  cause  of  the 


30O  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

j:^reat  mortality  in  India,  why  is  it  that  officers  and  civilians  do  not  suffer 
in  a  similar  proportion  ?  Why  is  it  that  the  petty  merchants,  clerks  and 
others  of  this  class,  do  not  die  off  as  the  poor  soldiers  do  ?  What  1  be- 
lieve to  be  the  cause,  is  this.  Our  soldiers  live  too  freely — more  freely 
than  they  would  do  in  private  life  in  their  own  homes  ;  and  hence  they 
are  predisposed  to  disease.  Then,  when  epidemics  break  out,  they  are 
the  greatest  victims.  In  India,  it  is  well  known  that  Europeans,  if  they 
wish  to  preserve  their  health,  must  live  more  temperately  than  in  Eng- 
land. A  man  may  do  with  impunity  in  England  that  which  will  lay  the 
foundation  of  disease  in  India.  Just  as  a  man  w-ill  eat  lumps  of  solid  fat 
or  drink  even  oil  with  impunity  near  the  North  Pole,  which  he  will  loathe 
in  a  temperate  climate.  Look  at  the  sanitary  returns  of  the  English 
army  at  home,  which  have  been  lately  published.  Just  see  what  the 
mortality,  even  there,  is  compared  to  the  general  population.  I  see  that 
the  Committee  put  it  all  down  to  bad  barracks.  I  suspect  when  that 
cause  has  been  removed,  we  shall  find  that  the  mortality  among  the 
troops  in  England  will  still  continue  to  be  excessive.  In  England  how- 
ever it  could  not  be  put  down  to  climate,  and  so  it  is  attributed  to  bad 
accommodation  ;  like  the  pennyworth  of  bread  and  the  many  shillings- 
worth  of  canary  in  Falstaffs  account. 

My  firm  conviction  is  that  the  European  soldier  eats  too  much  animal 
food  as  a  rule,  drinks  too  much  grog,  and  sleeps  too  much.  Except 
when  on  service,  he  has  little  to  do,  and  indeed,  for  many  months  in  the 
year,  much  exercise  is  scarcely  practicable.  These  men  before  they  be- 
came soldiers  had  to  work  all  day  and  lived  mainly,  perhaps  altogether, 
on  farinaceous  food.  An  Irish  or  Scotch  labourer  scarcely  tastes  animal 
food.  The  same  man  in  India  eats  meat  twice  a  day  ;  perhaps  oftener. 
Then  again,  as  to  drink,  look  at  the  quantity  of  raw  spirits  they  consume, 
to  none  of  which  they  were  accustomed  in  their  youth.  A  soldier  is  not 
considered  a  drunkard,  he  is  not  returned  as  such  by  the  medical  man, 
unless  he  is  notorious  for  having  often  committed  himself.  And  a  man 
may  habitually  be  a  dram-drinker,  and  undermine  and  destroy  his  con- 
stitution, and  yet  be  deemed  a  sober  and  steady  soldier.  Such  a  man  in 
a  highly  salubrious  climate  like  England  or  Rawul  Pindi  may  carry  on 
for  a  comparatively  long  time  :  but  if  quartered  in  a  place  like  the  Pe- 
shawur  valley,  he  will  rapidly  sicken  and  die.  But  in  the  one  climate,  as 
in  the  other,  he  will  not,  as  a  rule,  live  out  his  full  time.  He  will  not 
live  nearly  so  long  as  the  poor,  hardly  worked,  ill-fed  labouring  man.  I 
know,  in  my  own  case,  that  except  when  marching  or  out  shooting,  I 
cannot  eat  meat  twice  a  day  with  impunity.  Up  here  in  the  hills  I  can- 
not do  it,  though  I  walk  probably  three  miles  a  day  ;  and  as  to  liquor, 
dram-drinking  for  a  month  would  kill  me  out-right. 

During  my  service  in  India  I  have  known  some  regiments  and  many 
officers  who  were  known  to  live  hard.  This  habit,  I  am  happy  to  say,  is 
yearly  going  out  of  fashion,  but  when  I  came  to  India  first,  it  was  but 
too  common.  I  have  always  found  that,  in  such  cases,  these  officers' 
career  was  short  ;  all  were  prematurely  carried  off.     Such  cases  can,  in 


1858-59  RECOGNITION    OF   SERVICES.  30I 

no  wise,  be  compared  to  those  of  the  soldiers.  It  is  much  easier,  I  admit, 
to  see  an  evil  than  to  devise  a  remedy.  But  unless  the  evil  be  admitted, 
it  can  never  be  grappled  with.  What  is  wanted, — as  it  appears  to  me — 
is  to  obtain  a  moral  influence  over  the  soldiers.  Mere  orders  and  rules 
will  not  answer  the  purpose.  Until  we  can  make  the  men  feel  and  be- 
lieve that  what  we  say  is  really  true,  we  may  preach  and  pester  them 
for  ever  in  vain.  I  think  a  good  deal  might  be  done  by  beginning  with 
the  men  when  they  tirst  embark  for  India,  by  not  giving  them  grog  on 
board  ships,  by  insisting  that  grog  was  drunk  diluted,  by  giving  a  great 
advantage  in  the  purchase  of  beer,  by  giving  extra  pay  to  men  who  never 
drank  spirits,  by  officers  going  more  among  the  men  and  trying  to  in- 
fluence them.  I  have  no  wish  to  keep  large  bodies  of  European  troops 
at  Peshawur,  on  account  of  the  barracks.  On  the  contrary,  I  should 
keep  no  more  than  were  absolutely  necessary.  But  without  some  we 
should  not  be  safe. 

From  Miirri  Sir  John  Lawrence  went  to  Peshawur,  held  many 
conferences  there  on  sanitary  and  other  matters  with  Cotton  and 
Edwardes,  visited  several  of  the  frontier  forts,  wrote  his  final  memo- 
randum, which  I  have  already  quoted  in  full,  on  the  abandonment 
of  Peshawur,  and  read  aloud  to  the  Peshawur  troops  who  had  been 
paraded  for  the  purpose,  the  proclamation  of  the  Queen  on  assum- 
ing the  direct  government  of  India.  He  was  accompanied  on  this, 
his  last  visit  to  the  frontier,  by  Richard  Temple,  his  secretary,  who 
has  thus  described  what  took  place. 

As  the  year  1858  drew  towards  its  end,  John  Lawrence  crossed  the 
Indus  for  the  last  time,  to  visit  Peshawur  once  more,  and  I  was  in  at- 
tendance on  him.  As  we  crossed  the  Indus  at  Attock,  where  a  grand 
old  fortress  overlooks  the  swiftly  rushing  river,  he  repeated  his  oft  ex- 
pressed admiration  for  that  position  on  account  of  its  classic  interest, 
picturesque  beauty  and  political  importance.  Recently,  the  great  river, 
having  been  in  its  upper  course  amidst  the  Himalayas,  dammed  up  by  a 
landslip  for  some  weeks,  had  at  length  burst  its  barrier,  and  then  rushed 
downwards  past  Attock  with  a  terrific  flood,  rising,  in  a  very  few  hours, 
twenty  feet  above  high-water  mark.  The  Cabul  river  joins  the  Indus  at 
a  short  distance  above  Attock  ;  this  flood  banked  up  the  Cabul  river, 
and  the  refluent  water  inundated  the  military  station  of  Nushera,  twenty 
miles  above  the  junction.  As  we  descended  from  some  high  ground 
toward  the  valley  of  Peshawur,  and  commanded  a  full  view  of  the  place, 
John  Lawrence  drew  attention  to  the  difficulties  of  the  situation.  '  Look,' 
he  said,  '  at  the  fertile  and  populous  plains  environed  on  all  sides  by 
rugged  hills  from  which  implacable  foes  can,  at  any  moment,  emerge  to 
ravage  and  to  slay.'  We  ascended  a  neighbouring  mountain  where  it 
had  been  proposed  to  establish  a  Sanitarium  for  fever  stricken  Europeans 
from  Peshawur  ;  but  he  set  his  face  against  the  project,  declaring  that. 


302  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

sooner  or  later,  the  helpless  invalids  would  be  attacked  and  slain  by  the 
bloodthirsty  mountaineers.  Arriving  at  Peshawur,  we  marvelled  at  the 
crowded  markets  and  diversified  wares,  the  mixture  of  Indian  and  Cen- 
tral Asian  costumes,  the  clear  running  brooks  and  watercourses,  the 
blooming  gardens  and  irrigated  fields.  We  went  as  near  to  the  Khyber 
Pass  as  was  permissible,  to  gaze  into  its  gloomy  recesses,  rode  through 
the  Kohat  Pass  with  a  strong  escort  lest  the  Afridi  marauders  should 
rush  upon  us,  examined  the  defensive  posts  on  the  Eusufzye,  and  accom- 
panied Harry  Lumsden  with  a  party  of  his  Guide  troopers  on  a  hawking 
expedition.' 

Leaving  Peshawur,  Sir  John  Lawrence  went  to  Sealkote  and 
took  the  opportunity  of  paying  a  first  and  last  state  visit  to  Run- 
beer  Sing,  the  new  Maharaja  of  Kashmere  at  Jummoo.  Many 
pubhc  meetings  and  one  '  very  private  '  interview  by  night  took 
place  between  the  two  potentates.  Rumour  had  been  flying  about, 
supported  by  something  like  written  evidence,  that  communica- 
tions dangerous  to  us  had  been  passing  and  repassing  between 
Jung  Bahadur,  the  able  and  powerful  Minister  of  Nepal,  the 
Maharaja  of  Kashmere,  and  the  Ameer  of  Cabul.  Dost  Moham- 
med, nettled  at  the  stopping  of  his  subsidy,  had  come  down,  as  it 
was  supposed,  with  no  friendly  intentions,  to  Jellalabad  ;  Runbeer 
Sing  was  inexperienced  and  lacked  the  political  wisdom  or  astute- 
ness of  his  father  ;  while  Jung  Bahadur,  as  we  knew  well,  held  a 
trump  card  in  his  hand  in  the  person  of  the  ex-Maharani  of  La- 
hore, who  was  under  his  guardianship  at  Katmandu,  and  if  only  it 
had  suited  his  purpose  to  'play'  her  in  the  Mutiny,  when  Sir 
John  Lawrence  had  sent  his  last  available  Europeans  to  the  Ridge, 
things  might  have  gone  very  differently  with  us  there.  He  had 
given  us  some  valuable  assistance  at  Lucknow.  But  there  was  rea- 
son to  think  that  his  head  had  been  somewhat  turned  thereby. 
The  combination,  therefore,  did  not  even  now  seem  to  be  beyond 
the  range  of  possibility.  But  Sir  John  came  away  from  his  night 
interview  with  Runbeer  firmly  impressed  with  the  belief  that  no 
danger  was  to  be  apprehended  from  that  quarter.  And  here,  per- 
haps, I  may  best  tell  an  anecdote  which  shows  how  entirely,  to  the 
native  mind,  Sir  John  Lawrence  represented  and  summed  up,  as  it 
were,  the  Punjab,  and  indeed  the  British  Government,  throughout 
the  i)eriod  of  the  Mutiny. 

I  was  (said  J.  II.  Batten  to  me)  Judge  at  Cawnpore  in  1858,  and  when 
the  army  came  back  thither  after  Sir  Colin  Campbell's  final  success  at 
Lucknow,  the  Nepalese  chief,  Jung  Bahadur,  came  through  the  station 

'  Men  and  Events  of  My  Time  in  India,  pp.  151- 152. 


185S-59  RECOGNITION   OF   SERVICES.  303 

on  his  way  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  Viceroy  at  Allahabad.  I  was  an 
old  friend  of  Jung-,  and  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  him  at  Kumaon  wlien  I 
was  Commissioner  there,  having  received  him  when  he  visited  my  terri- 
tory to  wash  away  his  London  and  Paris  sins  amidst  the  snows  and 
sacred  shrines  of  the  Himalayas,  on  his  return  from  Europe.  We  now 
had  a  great  deal  of  private  talk  together  on  public  matters,  and  I  was 
amused  at  the  airs  he  gave  himself  as  the  real  conqueror  of  Lucknow. 
But  I  was  also  much  interested  by  all  he  told  me  of  the  Mutiny  politics 
among  the  great  native  chieftains,  and  how  he  had  remained  loyal  to 
the  English  and  had  kept  others  so.  One  of  his  speeches  to  me  was, 
'  You  see  I  remained  sidha  (straight  and  true),  and  that  was  useful  to 
your  government  in  very  bad  times.'  I  said,  '  Suppose  you  had  not 
remained  loyal,  what  would  you  have  done  ? '  '  Why,'  said  he,  '  I  would 
have  let  down  the  Maharani  of  Lahore  on  Jan  Larens,  and  then  what 
would  England  have  done  ? '  I  told  this  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  at  Simla 
in  1864,  and  he  said  that  Jung  overrated  his  power,  but  that  the  Maha- 
rani would  have  been  an  '  awfully  troublesome  customer  '  in  the  Punjab. 

And  what  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  felt  to  be  in  a  remote  corner 
of  Nepal,  the  personification  of  English  strength  and  vigour  and 
endurance,  that,  we  may  be  sure,  he  was  still  more  in  his  own  prov- 
ince. As  regards  the  Punjab  at  least,  the  prophet  was  not  without 
honour  in  his  own  country.  The  natives  all  felt  his  controlling 
power.  When,  for  instance,  feeling  impatient  at  the  slow  progress 
of  our  troops  before  Delhi,  he  said,  one  day,  to  Raja  Tej  Sing,  the 
most  influential  of  all  the  Punjab  chiefs,  '  I  think  I  ought  to  go 
there  myself  ;  '  Tej  Sing  looked  at  him  fixedly  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  then  said  with  emphasis,  '  Sahib,  send  the  best  man  you  have, 
or  any  number  of  them,  but  don't  go  yourself.  So  long  as  you  stay 
here,  all  will  go  well.  But  the  moment  you  turn  your  back,  no  one 
can  say  what  devilry  may  not  take  place.' '  And,  once  more,  when 
Arthur  Brandreth  was  riding  in  a  mail-cart  with  a  native  driver  at 
Mooltan  on  the  day  before  Sir  John's  departure  for  England  and 
the  conversation  naturally  turned  on  the  expected  event,  the  native, 
with  a  face  of  undisguised  apprehension,  said,  '  Won't  something 
happen  when  he  goes  ? '  Jan  Larens,  as  he  and  as  every  native  of 
the  Punjab  thought,  was  the  weight  which  kept  the  whole  thing 
down,  the  pilot  who  alone  could  guide  the  ship  aright. 

The  danger  of  '  the  triple  alliance  '  being  over,  Sir  John  Lawrence 
sent  in  his  final  application  for  leave  of  absence  for  fifteen  months, 
to  begin  from  the  ist  of  January,  1859.  He  could  now  do  so  with 
a  tolerably  easy  mind.    *  The  whole  country,'  he  says  to  Lord  Can- 

'  Malleson's  Recreations  of  an  Indian  Official,  p.  128. 


304  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

ning,  '  from  end  to  end  is  as  quiet  as  possible.  Indeed,  I  never 
recollect  to  have  seen  the  people  so  loyal  and  contented.  The 
change  at  Peshawur  in  this  respect,  since  my  last  visit,  is  quite  re- 
markable. In  the  interior  of  the  country  I  have  no  apprehensions.' 
There  was  only  one  danger  ahead,  and  this  he  lost  no  opportunity 
of  impressing  upon  Lord  Canning,  upon  his  successor  Montgomery, 
and  upon  Lord  Stanley  at  home — the  enormous  number  of  Punjabi 
troops. 

The  Punjabi  troops  (he  says  to  Lord  Canning)  are  behaving  well  enough, 
but  it  is  quite  clear  that  we  have  too  many  of  them.  All  intelligent  na- 
tives see  this.  The  danger  on  this  account  will  increase  when  the  war 
is  over  and  the  Punjabis  have  time  to  look  about  them.  The  strength  of 
their  Artillery  is  small,  and  even  this  should  be  reduced.  The  great 
danger  will  be  from  the  disciplined  Infantry,  and  I  cannot  too  earnestly 
beg  that  your  Lordship  will  allow  their  numbers  to  fall  off.  In  the  next 
three  or  four  months  we  might  quietly  get  rid  of  as  many  thousands.  I 
do  not  believe  that,  at  present,  these  troops  mean  anything  wrong.  But 
native  soldiers  are  great  fools  ;  they  have  an  insane  idea  of  their  own 
importance.  And  while  there  is  much  in  our  system  which  renders  the 
service  valuable  to  them,  there  is  still  much  which  is  irksome.  One  weak, 
foolish,  or  tyrannical  officer  will  do  more  mischief  in  a  month  than  six 
good  ones  can  correct  in  a  year.  There  is,  doubtless  a  certain  security 
in  the  different  races  of  which  the  Punjab  troops  are  composed.  The 
Pathans  will  not  sympathise  in  every  movement  which  the  Sikhs  might 
make,  on  account  of  their  old  supremacy.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Sikhs 
thoroughly  hate  the  Mohammedans.  Nevertheless,  however  anomalous 
it  may  appear,  both,  under  certain  circumstances,  would  unite.  So  long 
as  we  are  strong  and  are  able  to  maintain  our  authority,  we  shall  have 
plenty  of  supporters.  It  is  only  when  we  are  weak  that  our  friends  will 
fall  away. 

Hvippily,  before  many  days  were  over.  Sir  John  Lawrence  was 
able,  to  his  '  infinite  satisfaction  ' — for  he  felt  that  the  safety  of  the 
Empire  might  turn  upon  it — to  announce  in  his  letters  to  his  friends 
that  Lord  Canning  had  consented  to  make  a  gradual  and  progress- 
ive reduction  of  the  Punjabi  troops  ;  and,  by  Christmas,  he  had 
returned  to  Lahore  to  make  his  final  arrangements  for  his  depart- 
ure from  India.  But  Montgomery  could  not  be  spared  from  Oude 
till  towards  the  end  of  February.  So  the  Chief  Commissioner,  de- 
spite the  earnest  recommendations  of  his  doctors,  clung  gallantly 
to  his  post  till  he  was  relieved.  The  short  delay  enabled  him  to 
take  a  leading  part  in  an  event  of  much  importance  to  the  future 
of  his  province. 

On  February  8,  in  the  presence  of  some  200  native  chiefs  and 


1858-59  RECOGNITION   OF   SERVICES.  305 

gentry,  who  had  flocked  thither  from  various  parts  of  the  province 
to  bid  him  farewell  and  to  witness  the  spectacle,  in  presence  also  of 
a  vast  crowd  of  natives  of  all  classes  and  races,  the  first  sod  of  the 
first  Punjab  railway  was  turned  by  the  first  Lieutenant-Governor. 
It  was  fitting  enough  that  a  step  which  was  likely  to  form  such  an 
epoch  in  the  history  of  the  Punjab,  so  to  stimulate  its  energies,  to 
develop  its  resources,  to  double  its  security,  should  be  presided  over 
by  the  man  who,  in  conjunction  with  his  illustrious  brother,  had 
been  connected  with  it  from  the  earliest  days  of  British  ascendency, 
had  brought  order  out  of  anarchy,  and  turned  War  and  Poverty 
into,  comparatively  speaking,  Peace  and  Plenty.  The  railway  was 
to  connect  Umritsur  and  Lahore  with  Mooltan,  a  distance  of  240 
miles,  and  being  carried  on  simultaneously,  as  was  then  hoped,  with 
the  improvement  of  steam  navigation  on  the  Indus,  and  with  the 
construction  of  another  railway  from  Kotri  to  Kurrachi,  would 
bring  the  Punjab  a  fortnight  nearer  to  England,  and  connect  it  im- 
mediately with  the  sea,  the  true  basis  of  our  military  operations  and 
the  best  security  for  our  frontier.  The  silver  shovel  presented  to 
John  Lawrence  for  the  occasion  bore  on  it  the  motto,  equally  ap- 
propriate to  the  railway  and  to  the  man  who  turned  its  first  sod — 
*  Tarn  bello  guam pace  ;  '  and  it  was  observed  by  the  onlookers  that  a 
deep  dint  was  made  in  the  metal  by  one  of  Sir  John's  vigorous 
strokes,  as,  with  main  strength,  he  filled  the  barrow  with  virgin  soil. 
At  almost  any  period  of  his  career  he  could  have  done  the  muscu- 
lar work  of  a  navvy  as  well  as  the  brain  work  of  the  ruler  of  a  prov- 
ince. A  year  or  two  later  the  Chairman  of  some  Parliamentary 
Committee  on  Indian  affairs  happened  to  ask  him  if  he  did  not 
consider  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  do  much  injury  to  a  railway 
in  a  short  interval.  He  replied  that  if  he  had  a  good  crowbar  and 
an  hour  or  two  to  himself  he  thought  'he  could  do  a  little  mischief  ; ' 
and  the  onlookers  remarked  that  he  gave  the  answer  as  though  he 
longed  to  try  the  experiment  !  '  I  have  little  doubt,'  says  Arthur 
Brandreth,  '  that  he  would  have  made  a  serious  breach  in  its  con- 
tinuity.* 

As  the  time  of  his  departure  drew  near,  marks  of  sympathy,  of 
admiration,  and  of  regret  crowded  in  upon  him  from  all  quarters, 
native  and  European.  In  particular,  on  the  eve  of  his  leaving  La- 
hore, a  farewell  address  was  presented  to  him  which,  in  the  number 
and  character  of  the  achievements  it  records  ;  in  the  eloquent  sim- 
plicity with  which  it  records  them  ;  finally,  in  the  ])ersonal  and  in- 
timate knowledge  of  the  man  and  of  his  work  possessed  by  most  of 
those  who  signed  it,  is  sufficiently  distinguished  from  other  addresses 


306  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

of   the  kind,  and,  as  such,  may  fitly  close  this  record  of  the  most 
stirring  period  of  John  Lawrence's  life. 

We,  the  undersigned  officers,  civil  and  military,  and  others,  serving  or 
residing  in  the  Punjab  territories,  desire,  on  the  occasion  of  your  ap- 
proaching departure,  to  express  to  you  our  admiration  of  your  public 
career  in  this  country. 

Many  of  us  have  resided  for  some  years  in  this  province  ;  some  from 
the  beginning  of  British  connection  with  it.  These,  therefore,  have  long 
been  personally  cognizant  of  your  great  deeds.  Some  of  us  have  resided 
here  during  a  comparatively  recent  period,  but  have  yet  seen  and  felt 
the  influence  of  your  character  on  the  general  administration  of  affairs. 

Those  among  us  who  have  served  in  political  and  diplomatic  capaci- 
ties know  how  you  have  preserved  friendly  relations  during  critical  and 
uncertain  times,  with  the  native  sovereignties  by  which  this  province  is 
surrounded  ;  how,  all  along  an  extended,  rugged,  and  difficult  frontier, 
you  have  successfully  maintained  an  attitude  of  consistency  and  resolu- 
tion with  wild  and  martial  tribes,  neither  interfering  unduly  on  the  one 
hand,  nor  yielding  anything  important  on  the  other. 

Those  among  us  who  are  immediately  connected  with  the  civil  ad- 
ministration know  how,  in  the  interior  of  the  country,  you  have  kept  the 
native  chiefs  and  gentry  true  to  their  allegiance  by  strictness  tempered 
with  conciliation  ;  how  emphatically  you  have  been  the  friend  of  the 
middle  and  lower  classes  among  the  natives,  the  husbandman,  the  arti- 
san, and  the  labourer.  They  know  how,  with  a  large  measure  of  suc- 
cess, you  have  endeavoured  to  moderate  taxation  ;  to  introduce  judicial 
reform  ;  to  produce  a  real  security  of  life  and  property  ;  to  administer 
the  finances  in  a  prudent  and  economical  spirit  ;  to  further  the  cause  of 
material  improvements,  advancing  public  works  so  far  as  the  means, 
financial  and  executive,  of  the  Government,  might  permit  ;  to  found  a 
popular  system  of  secular  education  ;  to  advocate  the  display  of  true 
Christianity  before  the  people,  without  infringing  those  principles  of  re- 
ligious toleration  which  guide  the  British  Government  in  dealing  with 
its  native  subjects.  They  know  how  you  have  always  administered  pat- 
ronage truly  and  indifferently  for  the  good  of  the  State.  To  the  civil 
officers,  you  have  always  set  the  best  example,  and  given  the  best  pre- 
cepts ;  and  there  are  many  who  are  proud  to  think  that  they  belong  to 
your  school. 

Those  among  us  who  have  served  with  the  Punjabi  troops  know  how, 
for  years,  while  the  old  force  was  on  the  frontier,  you  strove  to  maintain 
that  high  standard  of  military  organization,  discipline  and  duty,  of  which 
the  fruits  were  manifest  when  several  regiments  were,  on  the  occurrence 
of  the  Bengal  mutinies,  suddenly  summoned  to  serve  as  auxiliaries  to  the 
European  forces  before  Delhi,  in  Oude,  in  Hindustan,  and  on  all  occa- 
sions they  showed  themselves  worthy  to  be  the  comrades  of  English- 
men ;  how  you,  from  the  commencement,  aided  in  maintaining  a  mili- 
tary police,  which,  during  the  crisis  of  1857,  proved  itself  to  be  the  right 


1S58-59  RECOGNITION    OF   SERVICES.  307 

arm  of  the  civil  power.  They  know  how  largely  you  contributed  to  the 
raising  and  forming  of  the  new  Punjabi  force  which,  during  the  recent 
troubles,  did  so  much  to  preserve  the  peace  within  the  Punjab  itself,  and 
which  has  rendered  such  gallant  service  in  most  parts  of  the  Bengal 
Presidency. 

All  those  among  us  who  are  military  officers,  know  how,  when  the 
Punjab  was  imperilled  and  agitated  by  the  disturbances  in  Hindustan, 
you,  preserving  a  unison  of  accord  with  the  military  authorities,  main- 
tained internal  tranquillity,  and  held  your  own  with  our  allies  and  sub- 
jects, both  within  and  without  the  border  ;  how,  when  the  fate  of  North- 
ern India  depended  on  the  capture  of  Delhi,  you,  justly  appreciating  the 
paramount  importance  of  that  object,  and  estimating  the  lowest  amount 
of  European  force  with  which  the  Punjab  could  be  held,  applied  yourself 
incessantly  to  despatching  men,  materiel,  and  treasure  for  the  succour 
of  our  brave  countrymen  engaged  in  the  siege  ;  how  indeed  you  created  a 
great  portion  of  the  means  for  carrying  on  that  great  operation,  and  de- 
voted thereto  all  the  available  resources  of  the  Punjab  to  the  utmost  degree 
compatible  with  safety.  They  know  how,  since  the  restoration  of  peace, 
you  have  endeavoured  so  to  dispose  the  military  forces  of  Government, 
European  and  native,  that  this  important  province  may  be  held  with  a 
firm  and  enduring  grasp. 

And  lastly,  all  of  us,  of  whatsoever  class  or  profession,  are  conscious 
of  the  untiring  energy,  unflinching  firmness,  unswerving  honesty  of  pur- 
pose, with  which  you  have  devoted  yourself  to  promote  the  public  service. 
We  all  believe,  from  personal  knowledge  or  common  fame,  that  you  have 
been  an  instrument  in  the  hand  of  Providence  for  the  preservation  of 
British  rule  in  Upper  India,  by  your  good  management  and  resolute 
bearing  during  a  period  of  unexampled  difficulty.  Indeed,  there  are 
many  who  feel  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  you  for  the  preservation  of  them- 
selves and  their  families  during  that  terrible  time. 

It  is  source  of  pride  and  gratification  to  us  that  your  services  have  been 
recognized  by  our  Gracious  Sovereign,  and  our  common  country ;  and 
we  observe  with  lively  satisfaction  that  you  will  hold  such  a  position  in 
England  as  may  enable  you  to  advocate  those  principles  on  which  you 
have  always  acted  in  India.  And  you  may  be  sure  that,  among  all  your 
fellow  countrymen  at  home  and  abroad,  there  will  be  none  who  wish 
more  sincerely  for  your  happiness,  welfare,  and  success,  than  those  who 
have  been  connected  with  the  Punjab  and  its  dependencies. 

This  address  was  signed  by  282  civilians,  by  474  military  and 
naval  officers,  by  15  clergymen,  and  by  83  gentlemen  unconnected 
with  the  Government.  And  of  these  I  would  remark,  once  more, 
with  emphasis  that  a  very  large  part  had  been  eyewitnesses  of  much 
of  what  they  recorded.  They  had  gone  in  and  out  with  him  from 
the  earliest  Punjab  days  even  until  now.  They  had  been  behind 
that  veil  which  cynics  say  ought  always  to  hang  between  the  hero 


308  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  185S-59 

and  his  worshippers,  if  they  are  to  remain  his  worshippers  long. 
They  had  been  followers,  some  of  them,  of  the  elder  'brother,  had 
lost  their  hearts  to  him,  had,  not  unnaturally,  resented  the  way  in 
which  he  had  been  'elbowed  out  of  the  Punjab  '  by  Lord  Dalhousie, 
and  had,  at  first,  not  been  over-willing  to  serve  his  successor.  They 
had  smarted,  many  of  them,  under  that  successor's  lash.  They  had 
been  passed  over,  many  of  them,  by  him  again  and  again  for  some 
post  on  which  they  had  set  their  hearts,  and  for  which  they  thought 
themselves  qualified,  because  in  his  overflowing  zeal  for  the  public 
service  he  would  put  no  one,  friend  or  otherwise,  into  a  place  for 
which  he  did  not  think  him  to  be  the  best  possible  man.  Yet  this 
was  their  deliberate,  their  unanimous  verdict  about  him.  Did  any 
ruler  ever  receive  a  nobler  or  more  unexceptionable  testimony  to 
his  public  services  and  private  virtues?     And  here  is  his  reply  : 

Gentlemen, — I  thank  you  from  my  heart  for  the  genial  and  kindly 
terms  in  which  you  have  acknowledged  my  humble  services  in  the  Pun- 
jab. "While  fully  sensible  of  the  advantages  which  an  officer  in  my  posi- 
tion must  derive  by  securing  the  goodwill  of  his  fellow-labourers,  I  have 
endeavoured,  in  the  course  of  my  administration,  to  be  guided  by  still 
higher  considerations.  It  is,  therefore,  peculiarly  gratifying  to  me  to 
find  that  my  policy  in  this  respect  has  not  prevented  my  gaining  your 
sympathy  and  regard.  The  compliment  which  I  have  this  day  received 
from  so  many,  who,  by  personal  knowledge  and  daily  experience,  are 
well  able  to  form  a  correct  judgment  on  the  subject,  affords  me  the  high- 
est gratification. 

I  have  long  felt  that  in  India,  of  all  countries,  the  great  object  of  the 
Government  should  be  to  secure  the  services  of  able,  zealous,  and  high- 
principled  officials.  Almost  any  system  of  administration,  with  such 
instruments,  will  work  well.  Without  such  officers  the  best  laws  and 
regulations  soon  degenerate  into  empty  forms.  These  being  my  convic- 
tions, I  have  striven,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  and  with  all  the  power 
which  my  position  and  personal  influence  could  command,  to  bring  for- 
ward such  men.  Of  the  many  officers  who  have  served  in  the  Punjab, 
and  who  owe  their  present  position,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  my  support, 
I  can  honestly  affirm  that  I  know  not  one  who  has  not  been  chosen  as  the 
fittest  person  available  for  the  post  he  occupies.  In  no  one  instance 
have  I  been  guided  in  my  choice  by  personal  considerations,  or  by  the 
claims  of  patronage.  If  my  administration  then  of  the  Punjab  is  deserv- 
ing of  encomium,  it  is  mainly  on  this  account,  and,  assuredly,  in  thus 
acting  I  have  reaped  a  rich  reward. 

When  the  great  mass  of  the  native  army  in  Hindustan  first  gave  signs 
of  its  intentions  to  mutiny  ;  when  disaffection  spread  from  station  tD  sta- 
tion until  almost  all  the  Hindustani  troops  in  the  Punjab  became  infected, 
and  only  waited  the  opportunity  for  rising  in  revolt,  I  had  to  look  with 


1858-59  RECOGNITION   OF   SERVICES.  3O9 

anxious  eye  for  the  means  of  maintaining  British  supremacy  in  the  Pun- 
jab. In  the  quality  of  the  civil  and  military  officers  under  my  control  ; 
in  the  excellence  of  the  Punjab  force  which  had  been  raised,  trained,  and 
disciplined  under  the  Civil  Government ;  in  the  general  loyalty  of  the 
chiefs  and  people,  as  much  as  in  the  valour  of  our  British  troops,  did  I 
find  the  means  of  securing  the  public  tranquillity  here,  and  of  rendering 
assistance  in  Hindustan. 

The  Punjab,  which  had  often  been  thought  a  source  of  weakness  and 
danger,  then  was  found  to  be  a  tower  of  strength  to  the  Empire.  In 
every  part  of  the  province,  from  Peshawur  to  the  banks  of  the  Jumna, 
was  found  a  body  of  civil  officers,  who  proved  themselves  equal  to  the 
crisis  in  which  they  were  placed.  Not  a  single  officer  left  his  post.  In 
remote  districts,  the  officers  held  their  ground,  supported  by  a  few  police- 
men, among  a  generally  contented  and  well  disposed  population.  The 
duties  of  the  administration  were  almost  as  well  carried  on  as  in  times 
of  profound  peace. 

To  the  discipline,  endurance,  and  valour  of  the  old  Punjab  force,  the 
British  Government  owes  a  lasting  debt  of  gratitude.  Admirably  offi- 
cered and  commanded;  trained  for  upwards  of  eight  years  in  the  severe 
and  incessant  duties  of  guarding  the  wildest  border  in  the  British  domin- 
ions in  Asia  ;  inured  to  constant  warfare  against  powerful  and  warlike 
mountain  tribes,  the  services  of  these  troops  have  proved  most  important. 
While  a  portion  of  the  force  still  maintained  its  guard  on  the  frontier,  a 
large  body  were  marched  away  the  moment  that  the  Mutiny  broke  out, 
some  to  assist  in  overawing  the  disaffected  Hindustani  soldiers  in  the 
Punjab,  but  the  greater  portion  to  share  with  our  gallant  countrymen  the 
dangers  and  honours  of  the  war  in  Hindustan. 

The  new  troops  which  the  necessities  of  the  times  compelled  me  to 
raise  in  large  numbers  have,  without  exception,  behaved  well ;  and  many 
corps  in  the  field  have  emulated  the  gallantry  and  hardihood  of  the  old 
regiments. 

Further,  I  thank  the  officers  and  men  of  the  British  regiments  serving 
in  the  Punjab  for  the  valour  and  endurance  which  they  evinced  during 
the  terrible  struggle.  The  deeds  indeed  need  no  words  of  mine  to 
chronicle  their  imperishable  fame.  From  the  time  that  the  English  reg- 
iments cantoned  in  the  Simla  hills  marched  for  Delhi  in  the  burning 
month  of  May,  1857,  exposure  to  the  climate,  disease  and  death  under 
every  form  in  the  field,  were  their  daily  lot.  Great  as  were  the  odds 
with  which  they  had  to  combat,  the  climate  was  a  far  more  deadly  en- 
emy than  the  mutineers.  In  a  very  few  weeks,  hundreds  of  brave  sol- 
diers were  stricken  down  by  fever,  dysentery,  and  cholera.  But  their 
surviving  comrades  never  lost  their  spirits.  To  the  last  they  faced  dis- 
ease and  death  with  the  utmost  fortitude.  The  corps  which  remained  in 
the  Punjab  to  hold  the  country,  evinced  a  like  spirit  and  similar  endur- 
ance. Few  in  numbers,  in  a  strange  country,  and  in  the  presence  of 
many  enemies  who  only  lacked  the  opportunity  to  break  out,  these  sol- 
diers maintained  their  discipline,  constancy  and  patience. 


310  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1858-59 

Lastly,  it  is  with  pleasure  that  I  acknowledge  how  much  I  have  been 
indebted  to  the  military  authorities  in  this  province  for  the  cordiality  and 
consideration  I  have  ever  received  at  their  hands.  In  all  the  arrange- 
ments which  it  has  fallen  to  my  lot  to  make  for  the  maintenance  of  pub- 
lic security  in  all  matters  in  which  we  have  been  associated  together,  I 
have  met  with  their  ready  and  zealous  co-operation.  Gentlemen,  again 
thanking  you  for  the  great  honour  you  have  conferred  upon  me,  I  w-ish 
you  health  and  prosperity  and  a  speedy  return  to  your  native  country. 

On  February  25  Montgomery  arrived.  Sir  John  Lawrence 
handed  over  the  Government  to  him  with  no  unwilling  heart, 
and,  on  the  following  morning,  left  Lahore,  not  to  return  to  it  till 
he  was  to  come  thither  in  all  the  pomp  and  splendour  of  Governor- 
General  of  India.  From  Mithancote  he  sailed  down  the  Indus,  and 
as  a  mark  of  his  high  displeasure,  steamed,  without  slackening 
speed,  right  by  the  Nawab  of  Bahawalpore,  who,  to  his  certain 
knowledge,  had  been  disposed  to  play  us  false  in  the  Mutiny,  but 
had  now,  after  the  manner  of  his  kind,  come  down  in  state  to  the 
river  bank  to  greet  the  conqueror.  At  Hyderabad,  he  spent  some 
days  with  Bartle  Frere,  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  Scinde,  who 
had  given  him  such  timely  and  unstinted  aid  in  the  struggle.  With 
his  usual  hospitality,  Frere  had  contemplated  entertaining  his  dis- 
tinguished guest  at  a  public  dinner  at  Kurrachi,  and  had  made 
preparations  accordingly.  But  time  pressed.  Sir  John  Lawrence 
yearned  to  be  at  home.  And  this  yearning,  coupled,  I  believe,  with 
the  knowledge  that  he  would  be  made  a  '  lion  '  of,  and  have  to  make 
a  speech,  served  to  quicken  his  departure,  and  he  set  sail,  at  last, 
for  Bombay  and  England.  *  Your  name  and  services,'  said  Lord 
Stanley  in  one  of  his  last  letters  to  him,  '  are  in  ever}'one's  mouth. 
Be  prepared  for  such  a  reception  in  England  as  no  one  has  had  for 
twenty  years.' 


CHAPTER   IX. 

HOME    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND. 
February,  1859— December,  1863. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  was  met  in  Paris  by  his  wife  and  his  two 
eldest  daughters.  He  spent  a  few  days  there,  and  his  friend,  Arthur 
Brandreth,  who  had  accompanied  him  from  India,  has  recorded 
how  a  threat,  uttered  in  joke,  that  he  would  apprise  the  Mayor  of 
Dover  of  his  approach,  excited  the  ire  of  his  unostentatious  and 
simple-hearted  companion.  Accordingly,  he  managed  to  cross  the 
Channel  unobserved,  thus  escaping  the  embarrassing  attentions  of 
the  crowd  on  the  Dover  Pier,  and  the  conventional  address  at  the 
Lord  Warden,  and  he  made  his  way,  without  let  or  hindrance,  to  the 
house  in  London — 16  Montague  Square — which  had  been  occupied 
for  some  time  past  by  his  wife  and  his  sister  Letitia.  It  was  a  happy 
family  meeting,  after  fifteen  years  of  separation.  But  many  changes 
had  taken  place  in  the  interval.  The  old  mother  had  died,  the  old 
Clifton  home,  with  its  associations,  had  been  broken  up,  the  sister 
had  become  a  widow.  Of  course,  his  arrival  in  London  could  not 
be  kept  a  secret.  He  reported  himself  at  once,  as  in  duty  bound,  at 
the  India  House,  and  was  warmly  received  by  the  authorities  there, 
not  least  by  his  new  chief,  Lord  Stanley.  Addresses  of  congratula- 
tion poured  in  upon  him.  Deputations  from  various  public  bodies, 
civil  and  religious,  were  anxious  to  greet  him  in  person.  Any  public 
meeting  at  which  there  was  a  chance  of  his  being  present,  was  sure 
to  be  crowded  by  a  large  audience,  anxious,  not  so  much  to  support 
the  cause,  as  to  catch  a  sight — like  the  Romans  of  old  on  the  return 
of  Scipio  from  Spain — of  the  rugged  features  of  the  man  who  had 
done  so  much  to  save  our  Empire  in  the  East  When  he  had  left 
England  seventeen  years  before,  he  was  unknown  by  name  to  any- 
one beyond  the  small  circle  of  his  relations  and  friends.  Now,  as 
Lord  Stanley  had  said,  '  his  name  and  achievements  were  in  every- 
body's mouth.' 

Public  receptions  and  addresses  have  become  matters  of  such 

311 


312  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

everyday  occurrence,  in  an  age  which  has  been  prodigal  of  petty 
and  not  always  successful  wars,  that  I  shrink  from  lingering  over 
celebrations  which  had  a  great  deal  of  meaning  then,  but  have 
become  vulgarised  now,  and  can  hardly  fail  to  be  somewhat  dis- 
tressing and  humiliating  to  the  more  or  less  distinguished  men  who 
have  to  undergo  them.  A  passing  notice,  however,  I  must  give  to 
one  or  two  of  the  more  striking  ceremonials  of  which  Sir  John 
Lawrence  was  the  object. 

On  June  3  the  Freedom  of  the  City  which  had  been  awarded 
him  in  the  previous  year  was  formally  conferred  upon  him  in  the 
presence  of  a  brilliant  assemblage,  and  he  was  able, — as  he  had 
expressed  a  hope  that  he  should  be  able  to  do,  in  the  middle  of  his 
anxieties  in  India, — '  to  stand  in  the  Guildhall  and  thank  the  court 
in  person  '  for  the  honour  conferred  upon  him. 

If  ancient  Rome  (said  the  spokesman  of  the  Corporation)  in  the  pleni- 
tude of  her  power,  could  justly  boast  of  two  illustrious  sons  of  Cornelia, 
surely  Britain  may  view  with  pride,  in  the  persons  of  Henry  and  John 
Lawrence,  the  recurrence  of  one  of  those  parallels  which  history  occa- 
sionally reproduces.  Vain  is  the  endeavour,  in  the  compass  of  a  few 
brief  sentences,  to  describe  the  unerring  foresight,  the  admirable  prompt- 
itude, the  indomitable  firmness,  and  the  untiring  energy  displayed  by 
you  in  trampling  out  the  smouldering  embers  of  disaffection  within 
your  own  province,  enabling  you  to  organise  and  to  furnish  those  nu- 
merous levies  which  contributed  to  the  capture  of  Delhi,  and  the  conse- 
quent maintenance  of  our  supremacy  in  British  India.  Fortunately  for 
myself,  the  task  is  as  superfluous  as  it  is  impracticable,  for  History  has 
already  recorded  this  brilliant  chapter  of  our  Indian  Annals,  and  has 
conferred  upon  you  the  titles  of  '  Organiser  of  Victory  '  and  '  Saviour  of 
British  India.' 

More  than  half  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  reply  was  a  just  and 
warm  tribute  to  the  services  of  the  elder  of  the  two  '  Gracchi,'  his 
brother.  Sir  Henry.  Of  himself  he  said  very  little,  and  that  little 
only  that  he  might  dwell  upon  the  services  of  his  lieutenants,  and 
might  ask  again  for  their  still  delayed  reward. 

Regarding  myself,  it  becomes  me  to  say  but  little.  If  I  was  placed  in 
a  position  of  extreme  danger  and  difficulty,  I  was  also  fortunate  iu  having 
around  me  some  of  the  ablest  civil  and  military  officers  in  India.  In 
times  of  peace,  we  had  worked  so  as  to  be  prepared  for  times  of  com- 
motion and  danger.  We  had  laboured  to  introduce  into  a  new  country 
order,  law,  and  system.  Our  object  had  been  to  improve  the  condition 
of  the  people,  and  obtain  their  goodwill  and  sympathies,  and  hence  it 
happened  that,  by  God's  help,  we  were  able  to  meet  the  storm  which 


1859-63  HOME   LIFE   IN   ENGLAND.  SU 

must  otherwise  have  overwhelmed  us  all.  I  have  received  honours  and 
distinctions  from  my  sovereign.  I  have  been  welcomed  by  my  country- 
men of  all  classes  since  my  return  home,  with  consideration  ;  I  may  say 
with  affection.  But  I  hope  that  some  rewards  will,  even  yet,  be  extended 
to  those  who  so  nobly  shared  with  me  the  perils  of  the  struggle,  and  by 
whose  aid  my  efforts  to  maintain  the  supremacy  of  my  country  were 
crowned  with  success. 

On  June  24  in  Willis's  Rooms,  in  the  presence  of  another  enthu- 
siastic assembly,  Sir  John  Lawrence  received  an  address  which, 
though  it  was  primarily  intended  to  support  his  religious  policy,  as 
indicated  in  the  despatch  I  have  already  quoted,  also  passed  under 
review  the  whole  of  his  services,  and,  if  we  take  into  consideration 
the  character  and  number  of  those  who  signed  it,  may  be  said  to 
have  borne  a  truly  national  character.  It  was  signed  by  upwards 
of  8,000  persons,  including  the  3  Archbishops,  20  Bishops,  28  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Lordsi,  71  of  the  House  of  Commons,  300  Lord 
Mayors  and  Mayors,  Lord  Provosts  and  Provosts.  Members  of 
the  Government  were  debarred  by  their  ofificial  position  from 
signing,  but  a  letter  from  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  then  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  probably  expressed  the  collective  feelings  of  the 
Ministry,  and  looking  to  the  profound  esteem  and  admiration  with 
which  I  know  that  Lord  Lawrence  always  regarded  Mr.  Gladstone, 
it  was  probably  as  much  valued  by  him  as  any  other  signature  or 
set  of  signatures  in  the  whole.  '  I  beg  to  assure  you,'  said  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  Sir  Culling  Eardley,  *  that  were  I  now  able  to  act  in 
my  individual  capacity,  I  should  be  happy  to  join  in  any  testimo- 
nial expressive  of  the  most  profound  respect  and  regard  for  Sir 
John  Lawrence,  but  I  think  that  my  official  position  renders  it 
inexpedient  for  me  to  sign  any  address  relating  to  public  affairs  on 
which  I  may  have  to  deliberate  in  another  capacity.' 

The  Universities  were  as  eager  as  other  public  bodies  to  testify 
to  their  sense  of  his  services.  He  received  from  both  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  during  the  summer  of  this  year  the  honorary  degree  of 
D.C.L.  at  their  great  annual  Commemorations.  At  both  he  was 
received  enthusiastically,  and  I  may  perhaps  dwell  for  a  moment  on 
the  scene  at  Oxford,  which  has  a  special  interest  for  me,  inasmuch 
as  it  was  my  first  sight  of  the  man  whose  life  I  am  now  writing. 
He  seemed,  in  spite  of  all  that  he  had  gone  through,  to  be  in  the 
full  vigour  and  prime  of  manhood,  and  I  well  remember  the  pro- 
found interest  with  Avhich,  as  the  great  doors  of  the  theatre  were 
thrown  open,  and  the  recipients  of  the  honorary  degrees  advanced 
up  the  centre  of  the  room,  to  be  presented  to  the  Vice-Chancellor, 


314  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

Dr.  Jeune,  everyone  strained  forward  to  catch  the  first  sight  of  him. 
Undergraduates  forgot  their  folly  for  a  moment  as  they  gazed  upon 
his  rugged  features.  The  Newdigate  Prize  Poem,  which  had  been 
won  by  Antony  Aglen  of  University  College  and  was  of  quite 
exceptional  merit,  happened  to  be  on  the  extremely  appropriate 
subject  of  Lucknow,  and  I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  the  rounds 
of  applause  which  greeted  some  sounding  lines  referring  to  Sir 
Henry  Lawrence's  services  and  death — 

'Whose  lion  courage  and  whose  wisdom  tried, 
To  failing  hearts  his  own  stout  hope  supplied. 
O  greedy  Death  !     O  cruel  bursting  shell  ! 
Then  fell  their  tower  of  strength  when  Lawrence  fell. 

Socially,  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  '  the  lion  '  of  the  London  season. 
A  friend,  whose  graphic  reminiscences  of  him,  as  a  rough  young 
civilian  on  his  first  furlough,  I  have  quoted  in  full,  says  : — 

I  thought  I  had  never  seen  anything  more  noble  than  his  whole  air 
and  manner  when  he  returned  from  the  Mutiny.  It  bore  the  impress  of 
the  greatness  of  character  which  had  won  for  him  the  name  of  the 
'Saviour  of  India.'  At  that  time  he  was  the  hero  of  the  day.  It  was  the 
fashion  to  fete  him.  The  Queen  and  all  the  nobility  vied  in  showing  him 
every  attention,  but  he  retained  his  perfect  simplicity  of  manners  and 
tastes,  a  little  modified  from  the  roughness  of  his  early  days. 

Royalty  had  been  forward  enough  to  show  its  sense  of  the  services 
which  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  rendered  to  the  State  and  to  the 
Crown.  The  just  and  sagacious  frontier  policy,  which  had  taught 
the  Afghans  that  they  had  nothing  to  fear  from  England,  and  which 
had  stood  us  in  good  stead  during  the  Mutiny,  was  as  much  in  fa- 
vour then  with  the  Court  itself,  as  with  each  successive  President 
of  the  Board  of  Control,  with  each  successive  Governor-General, 
with  each  successive  Prime  Minister.  That  England's  extremity 
had  not  been  the  Afghan's  opportunity  was  due  to  that  policy  and 
to  that  alone. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  was  invited  to  Windsor  as  soon  as  he  arrived 
in  England,  and  was  treated  with  marked  distinction  by  his  royal 
hosts.  He  was  not  by  nature  a  courtier.  Simple  in  his  habits, 
careless  of  his  dress,  popular  in  his  sympathies,  free  or  even  blunt 
of  speech,  a  court  atmosphere  would  not  have  been  one  in  which  he 
could  long  breathe  freely.  He  was  impatient  of  the  trammels  and 
constraints  even  of  ordinary  English  society  ;  and,  in  India,  his 
disregard  of  the  conventionalities  of  life,  even  in  the  free  air  of  a 
non-regulation  province,  had  often  occasioned  amusement  and  sur- 


1859-63  HOME   LIFE   IN    ENGLAND.  315 

prise.  There  were  therefore  those  among  his  friends  who  looked 
with  interest,  not  unmixed  with  anxiety,  to  his  first  appearance  at 
the  EngHsh  Court.  The  man  who,  it  will  be  remembered,  had,  in 
a  moment  of  pre-occupation,  mislaid  and  lost  the  Koh-i-noor,  and 
whom  not  all  the  instructions  of  the  Court  costumier  could  prevail 
upon  to  pin  his  orders  on  in  their  right  places,  was  not  unlikely  to 
be  forgetful  of  some  of  the  ceremonial  proper  to  the  occasion.  But 
all  went  off  well.  What  the  Queen  herself  thought  of  the  services 
rendered  by  her  guest  I  am  fortunately  able  to  show  by  a  letter 
from  Sir  Charles  Phipps  which  I  find  among  his  papers,  and  v^^hich 
I  have  received  Her  Majesty's  gracious  permission  to  publish. 

Buckingham  Palace,  July  4,  1859. 
My  dear  Sir  John, — The  Queen  has  commanded  me  to  thank  you,  in 
her  name,  for  the  beautiful  and  curious  book,'  which  you  have  presented 
to  Her  Majesty  through  Lady  Gomm.  Valuable  as  such  an  addition  to 
Her  Majesty's  Library  would,  under  any  circumstances,  be,  the  Queen 
directs  are  to  say  that  she  has  accepted  it  with  much  increased  pleasure, 
as  presented  by  one  who  has  rendered  services  to  Her  Majesty  of  inesti- 
mable value  in  India. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  had  several  prolonged  interviews  with  Prince 
Albert,  and  was  much  impressed  by  his  minute  knowledge  of  Indian 
affairs.  Many  English  statesmen,  he  used  to  remark,  of  whom  he 
had  expected  better  things,  had  only  the  most  superficial  smattering 
and  the  smallest  interest  in  such  matters,  but  Prince  Albert's  knowl- 
edge was  both  wide  and  minute.  I  have  already  spoken  of  the 
surprise  felt  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  when  the  Prince  told  him  that 
he  had  read  his  paper  on  the  advisability  of  confining  our  posses- 
sions to  the  line  of  the  Indus,  and  expressed  his  warm  approval  of 
it.  And  I  may  also  mention  here  that,  some  two  years  later  than 
this,  and  some  six  months  before  the  premature  death  which  caused 
too  many  people  to  awake,  for  the  first  time,  to  a  full  consciousness 
of  the  great  abilities,  the  absolute  devotion  to  duty  and  the  self- 
sacrificing  life  of  the  Prince  Consort,  Sir  John  Lawrence  remarked 
to  his  friend  Captain   Eastwick,  '  I  am  no  courtier  ;    but  Prince 

'  This  book,  which  is  now  in  the  Royal  Library  at  Windsor  Castle,  has  had  a 
curious  history.  It  is  written  in  Arabic.  It  was  prepared  in  the  Palace  of 
Lucknow,  under  the  direction  of  the  King  of  Oudc,  and  is  a  faithful  illustration 
of  the  habits,  life,  and  dress  of  the  highest  Mohammedan  families  in  India.  It 
was  among  the  booty  taken  by  some  Sikhs  in  storming  the  Palace  towards  the 
close  of  the  Mutiny.  They  handed  it  over  to  their  commanding  ofificer,  who 
sent  it  to  Sir  John  Lawrence,  the  corps  being  one  of  those  which  had  been 
raised  under  his  orders.     He,  in  his  turn,  presented  it  to  the  Queen. 


3l6  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

Albert  has  always  struck  me  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  I 
have  ever  met.' 

That  a  man  whose  merits  were  so  universally  acknowledged,  as 
those  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  was  not  raised  at  once  to  the  peerage 
was  a  cause  of  as  much  surprise  in  England  as  it  had  been  in  India. 
The  general  dissatisfaction  found  expression  in  that  great  safety 
valve  of  English  discontent,  that  powerful  redresser  of  all  un-re- 
dressed  human  grievances,  a  letter  to  the  *  Times.'  In  particular, 
I  notice  one  letter  with  the  well-known  signature  of  '  Arthur  Kin- 
naird,'  pointing  out  that  the  Baronetcy  which  had  just  been  con- 
ferred upon  Sir  John  Lawrence,  had  been  offered  to  him  as  long 
ago  as  the  time  of  Lord  Dalhousie  ;  a  year,  that  is,  before  the 
Mutiny  broke  out,  and  had  therefore  been  earned  by  his  previous 
services.  And,  in  an  able  Leading  Article  on  the  same  subject,  I 
notice  that  the  raising  by  the  outgoing  Government  of  three  medioc- 
rities to  the  peerage,  furnished  the  writer  with  a  text  on  which  he 
was  not  slow  to  make  the  appropriate  comment — 

Let  us  be  thankful  that  England  is  still  nobly  served,  though  she  knows 
not  how  suitably  to  reward  those  who  nobly  serve  her  ;  and  let  us  con- 
sole ourselves  with  the  reflection  that  the  loss  is  not  on  the  side  of  Sir 
John  Lawrence.  For  though  his  name  would  add  much  to  the  lustre  of 
the  peerage,  the  peerage  can  add  nothing  to  the  lustre  of  his  name. 

One  additional  honour,  however,  which  I  may  mention  here,  was 
still  in  store  for  him.  After  prolonged  discussion,  in  which  the 
Queen  and  Prince  Albert  had  taken  great  personal  interest,  all  the 
details  for  the  institution  of  a  new  Order  of  Knighthood,  to  be  called 
the  *  Order  of  the  Star  of  India,'  were  completed.  It  was  to  consist 
of  twenty-five  knights,  European  and  Native,  the  Sovereign  being 
the  Grand  Master.  The  first  investiture  took  place  at  Windsor 
Castle  on  November  i,  1861,  and,  on  that  day,  Sir  John  Lawrence 
received,  in  company  with  his  old  friend  Lord  Clyde,  with  the 
Maharaja  Duleep  Sing,  with  General  Pollock  and  with  Lord  Harris, 
the  beautiful  insignia  of  the  new  Order.  They  consist  of  a  double 
star  of  rays  of  gold  and  diamonds,  resting  on  a  light  blue  enamelled 
riband,  and  inscribed  with  the  appropriate  motto — for  it  is  the 
motto  of  universal  religion — '  Heaven's  light  our  guide.'  The  collar 
consists  of  the  lotus  of  India  and  of  palm  branches  tied  together ; 
while  the  badge  of  the  Order  is  an  onyx  cameo  of  the  Queen's  head. 

Happily  for  the  personage  principally  concerned,  the  presentation 
of  addresses  and  the  making  of  speeches  could  not  go  on  for  ever. 
To  no  one  would  the  lion  hunting  of  the  fashionable  part  of  London 


1859-63    ■  HOME   LIFE   IN    ENGLAND.  317 

society  seem  so  hollow  ;  on  no  one  would  the  ceaseless  round  of 
frivolities  and  gaieties  which  men  call  pleasure,  pall  sooner  than  on 
John  Lawrence  ;  and  before  I  say  what  little  is  to  be  said  of  his 
duties  at  the  Indian  Council,  I  turn,  with  something  of  the  pleasure 
which  he  must  have  himself  experienced,  to  his  domestic  life  during 
the  next  four  years,  to  his  children  and  his  pets,  to  the  new  tastes 
which  he  developed,  to  the  old  to  which  he  returned,  to  the  new 
friends  whom  he  made,  or  to  the  old  ones  who  gathered  round  him, 
to  his  reading,  his  tours,  and  his  recreations.  Trivial,  no  doubt,  and 
beneath  the  conventional  dignity  of  biography,  some  of  these  matters 
may  seem  to  be  when  taken  by  themselves.  But  they  are  not  alien 
to  the  purpose  which  I  have  kept  in  view  throughout,  that  of  showing 
the  whole  man  in  all  his  lights  and  shades,  in  his  domestic  as  in  his 
public  life  ;  well  knowing  as  I  do  after  the  close  scrutiny  which  I 
have  been  bound  to  give  to  every  part  of  my  subject,  that  though 
he  was  not  free  from  shortcomings  or  from  roughnesses,  in  other 
words,  though  he  was  a  man  and  not  an  angel,  he  was  yet  a  genuine 
hero,  and  that,  as  Tennyson  has  said  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  so 
we  may  say  of  him, — 

Whatever  record  leaps  to  life 
He  never  will  be  shamed. 

His  duties  at  the  India  Office  made  it  necessary  that  he  should 
be  in  or  near  London,  but  simple  and  domestic  in  all  his  tastes, 
and,  hating  ostentation  with  a  perfect  hatred,  he  determined  to  be 
as  little  as  possible  of  it.  All  that  was  valuable  in  London  society 
of  course  he  would  retain.  All  that  was  worldly,  or  frivolous,  or 
worse  would  float  by  him.  With  his  sister,  Mrs.  Hayes,  there  had 
been  living  for  some  time  past,  the  young  daughter  of  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence,  a  girl  who,  even  then,  showed  something  of  her  father's 
exuberant  energy  and  heart ;  and  it  was  determined  that,  as  soon  as 
a  convenient  residence  could  be  found,  the  two  households  should 
form  one  family. 

In  August,  Sir  John  Lawrence,  having  initiated  himself  into  his 
new  work  at  the  India  Office,  took  his  first  holiday  ;  a  holiday 
which  no  one  living  had  more  fairly  earned,  and,  accompanied  by 
his  wife  and  his  four  eldest  children,  went  for  a  tour  in  Ireland. 
They  visited  Killarney,  traversed  the  wilds  of  Connemara,  stayed 
with  Lady  Lawrence's  two  brothers  in  the  North,  took  a  last  look 
at  the  home  of  her  childhood,  which  had  now  passed  into  the  hands 
of  strangers,  and  at  Dublin,  on  their  way  home,  paid  a  visit  to  the 
present  Lord  Cardwell.     By  Christmas,  a  house   large  enough  to 


3l8  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

accommodate  the  whole  party  had  been  found  in  Upper  Hyde 
Park  Gardens.  The  mysteries  of  furnishing  and  housekeeping,  so 
formidable  to  those  who  have  lived  all  their  lives  in  India  under 
conditions  wholly  different,  had  been,  in  some  measure,  solved,  and 
Sir  John  Lawrence  found  himself  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  that  for 
which  he  had  sighed  during  many  a  long  year  in  India,  a  home  of 
his  own,  with  his  favourite  sister  and  all  his  children  gathered 
round  him.  In  the  society  of  his  sister  he  seemed  to  renew  his 
youth,  consulting  her,  as  of  old,  in  everything,  and  having  long 
talks  with  her  every  evening  over  her  bedroom  fire.  His  health  im- 
proved rapidly,  and  it  seemed  as  though  India  would,  after  all, 
have  no  permanently  bad  effect  on  his  constitution.  The  work 
of  the  India  Office  was  enough  to  make  him  feel  that  he  was  not 
idle,  not  enough  to  make  him  feel  that  he  was  without  leisure. 
Altogether,  he  and  those  about  him  were  as  happy  as  they  could 
well  be. 

We  kept  (says  Lady  Lawrence)  early  hours  in  those  days.  At  8.30  the 
household  met  for  family  prayers,  and  the  large  party  of  children  break- 
fasted with  us  afterwards.  He  used  to  be  the  life  of  the  gathering,  and 
the  merry  stories  he  told  and  his  romps  with  the  children  are  well  re- 
membered. About  10  A.M.  he  started  for  the  India  Office,  and  did  not 
generally  return  till  late  in  the  evening  ;  but  before  he  left  home  he  was 
always  ready  to  give  help  to  me  in  every  little  domestic  matter.  It  was 
now  that  we  first  became  intimate  with  Captain  Eastwick,  who  has  ever 
since  been  our  dear  and  valued  friend.  He  and  my  husband  often  walked 
home  together.  We  had  many  old  friends  near  us,  and  members  of  my 
husband's  family  were  often  coming  in  and  out  among  us.  At  that  time, 
we  did  not  go  out  much  in  the  evening.  Occasionally  he  dined  out  ; 
but,  as  a  rule,  he  did  not  care  to  do  so.  Nor  did  he  ever  spend  much 
time  at  the  Club.  He  only  dropped  in  on  his  return  home  to  hear  what 
was  going  on.  The  evenings  were  generally  spent  in  reading  aloud. 
Sometimes  he  read  to  himself;  but  he  was  so  sociable,  and  so  enjoyed  the 
family  being  all  gathered  around  the  fire-side,  that  he  preferred  this  to 
reading  alone  in  the  library.  He  took  great  interest  in  politics,  but  no 
active  part  in  them.  He  occasionally  brought  home  work  from  the 
Office,  and  I  remember  sitting  with  him  at  night  and  copying  out  his 
papers  as  fast  as  he  wrote  them.  This  was  such  a  pleasure  to  me,  re- 
culling,  as  it  did,  the  old  Indian  days.  There  was  not  much  occasion  for 
this  kind  of  work  now  ;  only  it  made  me  very  happy. 

In  May  of  this  year  he  attended  the  Church  Missionary  Meeting 
in  Exeter  Hall,  at  which  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes  made  his  famous 
speech,  a  speech  which  many  who  heard  it  thought  to  be  one  of  the 
finest   displays  of  earnest   eloquence  that  they  had  ever   heard. 


1S59-63  HOME    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND.  319 

When  Sir  Herbert  sat  down  there  were  loud  and  enthusiastic  calls 
for  Sir  John  Lawrence,  who  was  on  the  platform,  but,  with  charac- 
teristic modesty,  kept  himself  in  the  background.  He  was  much 
delighted  with  his  friend's  success  ;  all  the  more  so  that  his  speech 
was  not  open  to  the  objections  which  his  paper  of  the  previous  year 
had  seemed  to  challenge.  Sir  John  Lawrence's  criticisms,  it 
seemed,  had  wiped  out  all  tinge  of  fanaticism  without  lessening  his 
zeal  and  his  Christian  earnestness. 

The  late  summer  months  were  spent  at  Worthing,  and  during  his 
children's  holidays  Sir  John  Lawrence  gave  himself  up  entirely  to 
them.  He  took  part  in  all  their  amusements,  especially  in  the  now 
almost  extinct  game  of  croquet,  a  game  in  which  he  was  an  adept. 
In  the  afternoons,  he  would  take  the  two  eldest  boys  and  girls  for 
long  and  rapid  rides  to  Arundel  or  elsewhere,  he  leading  the  way 
and  they  keeping  up  as  best  they  could.  When  the  holidays  were 
over,  he  paid  a  long  planned  visit  to  his  birthplace,  the  little  town 
of  Richmond  in  Yorkshire.  He  felt  or  fancied — as  well  perhaps 
he  might — that  his  career  was  over,  and  he  seemed  to  have  a 
yearning  to  look  once  more  upon  the  hills  which  had  given  him 
birth. 

From  Richmond  he  went  to  Inverary  Castle,  and  was  the  guest 
of  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Argyll,  and  it  is  hardly  necessary  to 
add  that  the  friendships  formed  or  cemented  there  ended  only  with 
death.  In  the  Duke  he  found  a  man  who  was  prepared  to  sym- 
pathise with  him  in  most  or  in  all  of  his  views  on  Indian  affairs,  and 
who,  besides  his  other  splendid  gifts,  was  pre-eminently  strong  in 
that  in  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  always  felt  and  always  deplored 
that  he  was  weak,  the  faculty  of  expressing  himself  by  word  of 
mouth,  on  all  occasions,  in  language  which  was  ready,  clear,  and 
eloquent.  What  the  Duke  of  Argyll  thought,  then  and  ever  after- 
wards, of  his  illustrious  guest  is  well  known.  But  I  cannot  refrain 
from  quoting  here  a  single  sentence  from  one  of  the  most  recent 
and  vigorous  of  his  speeches  on  the  abandonment  of  Candahar, 
which  probably  gives  the  gist  of  the  whole.  '  Of  all  the  great  In- 
dian authorities,'  said  the  Duke,  *  with  whom  I  have  been  brought 
into  contact  there  is  not  one  who  for  solidity  of  judgment,  for 
breadth  of  view,  for  strength  and  simplicity  of  character  is,  in  my 
judgment,  to  be  compared  with  Lord  Lawrence.' 

Sir  John  Lawrence's  friendship  with  the  Duchess  of  Argyll  was  a 
great  source  of  happiness  to  both.  Her  charms  and  varied  powers 
made  a  most  vivid  impression  upon  him.  He  would  talk  with  her 
for  many  hours  together,  and  her  advice  was  not  without  influence 


320  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

upon  him  on  one  or  two  of  the  most  critical  occasions  in  his  subse- 
quent Hfe. 

From  Inverary  he  went  down  to  Glasgow  that  he  might  receive 
the  Freedom  of  the  City,  passing  on  the  way  through  a  country 
which  must  have  seemed  familiar  enough  to  so  keen  a  lover  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott.  There  was,  as  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  re- 
mark, a  good  deal  of  the  Scotchman  in  John  Lawrence's  character, 
and  he  valued  the  Freedom  of  the  commercial  metropolis  of  Scot- 
land as  something  more  than  a  mere  compliment.  He  was  the 
guest  of  Dr.  Macduff  during  his  stay  at  Glasgow,  and  from  a  rem- 
iniscence with  which  he  has  favoured  me,  I  quote  one  or  two 
passages. 

The  Burgess  ticket  was  presented  to  him  in  a  crowded  assemblage  of 
the  citizens  in  the  City  Hall,  and  his  speech  in  acknowledgment  was  lis- 
tened to  with  marked  attention.  There  was  no  attempt  at  oratorical  art 
or  display,  no  superfluous  words  of  flattery  to  those  who  had  done  him 
honour.  He  plunged,  with  the  'Great  Dependency'  for  his  topic,  in 
7nedias  res.  The  lion-like  app-arance  of  the  man  who  was  then  in  the 
prime  of  manhood,  yet  whose  brow  was  furrowed  with  the  anxieties  of 
the  '  supreme  crisis,'  lent  power  and  impressiveness  to  all  he  said. 
These  days  were  a  great  enjoyment  to  him ;  for,  by  a  happy  coincidence, 
the  meetings  of  the  Social  Science  Association  were  then  being  held  in 
Glasgow,  under  the  presidency  of  Lord  Brougham.  Sir  John  was  among 
the  distinguished  men  upon  the  platform,  and  listened  'to  the  old  man 
eloquent'  as  he  delivered  his  inaugural  address.  I  took  him,  one  day, 
to  the  beautiful  home  of  the  late  Robert  Napier,  who  by  his  ship-yards 
on  the  Clyde  had  won  a  world-wide  reputation.  Both  the  man  and  his 
surroundings  were  greatly  to  Sir  John's  liking.  The  charming  scenery 
of  the  Gare  Loch,  and  the  rare  artistic  treasures  of  an  almost  palatial 
residence  he  much  admired.  The  pictures,  and  statuary,  and  porcelain 
were  duly  exhibited  by  the  host.  His  visitor  had  a  genuine  appreciation 
of  natural  beauty,  but  it  must  be  owned  that  his  preferences  inclined  to 
other  regions  than  the  artistic.  I  believe,  if  the  truth  were  told,  that  he 
set  far  less  value  on  a  Rembrandt  or  a  Titian  than  on  Rob  Roy's  snuff- 
box, with  its  manifold  appurtenances,  as  he  recalled  in  handling  it  the 
halo  which  the  genius  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  had  thrown  around  'the 
Knight  of  the  Black  Mail.'  This  reference  to  the  Celtic  race  reminds 
me  of  what  had  evidently  made  a  deep  impression  on  him  during  his 
present  journey  to  Scotland.  On  his  way  from  Inverary,  he  had  passed 
through  a  varied  portion  of  the  Argyllshire  and  Perthshire  highlands. 
Again  and  again  did  he  recur  with  an  almost  vehement  regret — though 
I  think  he  had  gathered  an  exaggerated  impression  on  the  subject — to 
the  depopulation  of  the  valleys  and  straths  which  met  his  eye,  retaining, 
as  they  did,  only  the  ruin-memorials  of  former  'Clachan'  and  'Cotter' 
life;  a  thriving  peasantry  dispossessed  and  displaced  by  large  farms,  and 


1859-63  HOME    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND.  321 

these  again  obliged  to  make  way  for  the  still  more  exacting  claims  of  the 
deer-forest  !  Sir  Walter's  old  ditty  in  the  MacGregor  Slogan  seemed  to 
have  struck  a  chord  in  his  heart  : — 

'  We  are  landless,  landless,  landless,  Gregarich  ! ' 

The  birth  of  a  daughter  in  June  of  this  year  had  given  a  new  in- 
terest to  the  home  life  which  was  just  beginning.  But  it  was  a 
short-Hved  happiness  enough.  It  will  be  remembered  how  nine 
years  before,  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  been  struck  down  by  the  loss 
of  his  infant  child  at  Lahore.  The  true  tenderness  of  the  man 
came  out  in  his  dealings  with  children,  especially  with  very  young 
children.  There  was  no  roughness  at  all  then.  '  Scratch  the  Rus- 
sian,' it  has  been  said,  '  and  you  will  find  the  Tartar.'  Of  Sir  John 
Lawrence  exactly  the  opposite  might  be  said,  '  Scratch  him  skin- 
deep  and  you  will  find  him  to  be  all  tenderness.'  His  roughness 
was,  in  fact,  skin-deep  and  not  always  that.  In  the  February  fol- 
lowing its  birth  the  child  sickened  and  died,  to  the  sore  distress  of 
its  parents,  and  Sir  John,  thinking  that  country  air  would  be  better 
for  his  other  children,  determined  to  leave  London  and  seek  a  home 
elsewhere.  The  influence  of  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes  and  his  wife 
led  him  to  Southgate,  and  here,  for  three  years,  he  enjoyed  a  peace 
and  domesticity  which  is  often  denied  to  Londoners. 

Southgate  House  was  an  old-fashioned  country  house  large 
enough  to  contain  his  sister  and  his  niece  as  well  as  his  own  family  ; 
and  it  had  a  good  garden  and  some  sixty  acres  of  ground  attached 
to  it.  Amidst  the  anxieties  of  his  last  year  in  India,  he  had  often 
been  heard  to  exclaim,  '  I  will  go  home  and  turn  farmer,'  and  now  he 
was  able  to  do  so  on  a  small  scale.  He  cut  himself  adrift  altogether 
from  London  gaieties,  and  gave  himself  up  to  country  life.  Of  his 
fondness  for  horses  I  have  often  spoken,  and  now  he  was  able,  to 
his  great  delight,  to  keep  cows,  sheep,  pigs,  and  poultry.  He  knew 
each  animal  intimately,  and  his  dry  humour  came  out  abundantly 
in  the  names  he  gave  to  each,  hitting  off,  to  a  nicety,  its  individual 
character.  A  pig  or  a  sheep  was  allotted  to  each  child,  which,  when 
it  had  been  fattened  at  the  father's  expense,  but  with  the  child's 
care,  was  duly  repurchased  by  its  original  owner  ;  and  so  the  in- 
terest of  the  children  in  the  live  stock  was  almost  as  great  as  his 
own.  His  summer  evenings  spent  in  croquet;  his  Saturday  after- 
noon family  drives  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  his  Sunday  afternoon 
progresses  round  his  farm,  the  Sunday  evening  family  readings  of 
the  *  Pilgrim's  Progress  '  and  the  family  repetition  of  a  hymn,  and 
then,  to  finish  all,  some  thrilling  story  of  his  early  Indian  adven- 
voL,  II. — 21 


322  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

tures, — '  a  hunt,  a  robbery,  or  a  murder/  told  as  few  but  he  could 
have  told  it,  to  his  large-eyed  wondering  audience — such  were  the 
simple  pleasures  of  his  home  life. 

Over  the  more  choice  of  his  animals  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  very 
choice  indeed,  and  would  leave  little  to  be  done  by  others,  as  an 
incident  told  me  by  a  well-known  clergyman,  the  Rev.  John  Smith, 
now  the  Vicar  of  Lyme  Regis,  and  one  of  the  most  vigorous,  hard- 
working, and  warm-hearted  of  men,  will  show.  It  was  the  time  of 
the  Cotton  Famine,  and  Mr.  J.  Smith,  who  was  then  in  charge  of  a 
large  manufacturing  parish  in  the  north  of  England,  and  was  a 
total  stranger  to  Sir  John  Lawrence,  had  been  invited  by  him  to 
make  Southgate  House  his  headquarters  while  he  was  advocating 
in  the  neighbourhood  the  claims  of  the  distressed  operatives.  The 
sufferings  of  these  men,  so  heroically  borne,  had  gone  to  the  heart 
of  Sir  John,  and  he  was  anxious  to  show  his  sympathy  for  them  in 
every  v.'ay  he  could.  One  morning  the  host  and  his  guest  happened 
to  start  for  London  together,  the  one  to  go  to  his  duties  at  the  In- 
dia Office,  the  other  to  preside  at  a  meeting  in  support  of  the  starv- 
ing operatives.  Observing  that  Sir  John  was  carrying  an  awkward 
and  heavy-looking  hamper  under  his  arm  on  their  walk  to  the  sta- 
tion, his  companion  asked  whether  he  might  not  carry  it  for  him. 
*  No,  thank  you,'  replied  Sir  John,  '  I  can't  trust  it  to  you  or  to 
anybody.  It's  too  valuable.'  When  they  arrived  in  London  and 
were  making  their  way  through  the  crowd  towards  a  cab,  the  offer 
was  repeated.  '  No,'  said  Sir  John,  '  I  will  give  it  to  no  one.' 
When  they  were  safely  seated  in  the  cab,  *  Now,'  said  Sir  John,  '  I 
will  tell  you  what  I  have  got  in  that  hamper.  It  is  a  pig  !  '  And 
a  live  pig  indeed  it  was,  of  a  notable  breed,  which  he  was  about  to 
give  with  his  own  hands  to  an  old  Indian  friend  ! 

During  his  residence  at  Southgate  he  managed  to  make  many 
new  and  close  friends  among  his  neighbours,  as  he  had  done  dur- 
ing every  stage  of  his  Indian  career,  even  when  he  was  playing  the 
part  of  the  most  exacting  of  task-masters  at  Lahore.  Three  of 
these  I  must  mention  by  name.  First  and  foremost  came  his  nearest 
neighbour,  Mr.  Charles  Bradley,  who,  with  Mrs.  Bradley,  was  after- 
wards to  give  as  signal  a  proof  of  friendship  as  one  man  can  well 
give  to  another,  by  taking  charge,  during  the  whole  of  his  well- 
earned  holiday,  of  all  the  children  of  the  Viceroy  of  India,  when 
Mrs.  Hayes,  the  aunt  under  whose  charge  they  had  been  left  in 
England,  was  suddenly  removed  by  death.  There  was  no  man. 
Lord  Lawrence  used  often  to  say  in  later  times,  on  whose  friend- 
ship he  could  place  a  more  implicit  trust  than  on  Charles  Bradley. 


•1859-63  HOME   LIFE    IN    ENGLAND.  323 

Next,  perhaps,  came  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cater,  of  West  Lodge,  Barnet, 
with  whom  frequent  visits  or  letters  were  interchanged  from  that 
time  to  the  day  of  his  death.  It  was  Mr.  Cater,  who,  during  the 
vast  pressure  of  pubhc  business  which  the  Viceroyalty  imposed 
upon  its  holder,  saved  him  from  much  anxiety  in  looking  after  his 
investments  and  private  family  concerns  in  England.  And,  thirdly, 
there  was  Mr.  T.  C.  Sandars,  well  known  as  one  of  the  ablest  con- 
tributors to  the  '  Saturday  Review  '  from  its  earliest  days  onwards, 
who  used  to  drop  in  evening  by  evening,  engage  in  long  conversa- 
tions or  arguments  with  the  retired  Civilian,  which  were  a  source  of 
much  enjoyment  to  both,  and  take  his  part  in  the  children's  amuse- 
ments, not  least  in  their  Christmas  acting.  Many  other  intimate 
friends  Sir  John  Lawrence  made,  at  this  period  of  his  life,  but,  if  I 
mistake  not,  they  attained  not  to  these  first  three. 

He  took  great  interest  in  politics,  but  he  was,  in  no  sense  of  the 
word,  and  at  no  time  of  his  life,  a  party  man.  His  sympathies  were 
always  with  freedom,  with  progress,  with  the  masses,  but  he  judged 
every  question  on  its  own  merits,  never  taking  up  a  party  cry  be- 
cause it  was  the  cry  of  the  party.  In  the  complicated  Russo-Turk- 
ish  question  for  instance — at  a  period  when  I  knew  him  well — he 
was  far  too  well  informed  and  clear  sighted  to  identify  himself  with 
the  views  of  either  of  the  extreme  parties  in  England.  He  knew 
the  faults  of  each  system  of  government  or  no-government  too  well 
to  constitute  himself  the  champion  of  either.  He  never  anathe- 
matised the  Turks  as  a  nation,  for  what  he  knew  to  be,  in  a  great 
measure  the  result  of  the  vices  of  their  rulers.  Still  less  did  he 
look  upon  the  Russians, — as  it  was  the  fashion  in  some  circles  to  do, 
— as  the  enlightened  and  disinterested  champions  of  oppressed 
races.  He  would  never  have  stood  up  for  Turkish  misrule,  or  the 
integrity  and  independence  of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  because,  from 
certain  narrow  points  of  view,  it  seemed  to  be  to  our  advantage  to 
do  so.  But  still  less  did  he  think  that  a  people  so  grossly  misgov- 
erned and  so  backward  as  the  Russians  had  a  right  to  plunge  half 
a  continent  into  war  in  order  to  compel  the  Turks  to  govern  better. 
In  a  word,  he  looked  at  the  question  from  both  sides  and  formed 
an  independent  and  equitable  judgment  upon  it. 

In  the  American  civil  war  which  was  raging  during  his  residence 
at  Southgate,  he  took  a  keen  interest,  and  here  he  was,  throughout, 
on  the  side  of  the  North.  At  that  time  there  were  some  leading 
Liberals  who  felt  otherwise.  But  John  Lawrence  felt  convinced 
from  the  beginning  that  though  the  motives  of  the  Northerners 
might  not  be  pure,  yet  the  inevitable  result  of  the  struggle  would, 


324  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

if  they  were  successful,  be  the  emancipation  of  the  Negro  ;  if  un- 
successful, his  prolonged  enslavement.  In  the  history  and  progress 
of  the  United  States  he  had  always  taken  a  deep  interest,  and  he 
often  expressed  his  regret  that  a  life  of  unceasing  labour  in  the 
East,  had  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  visit  the  great  Republic  in 
the  West. 

His  personal  wants  were  of  the  fewest.  They  were  as  simple  as 
was  his  character.  He  could  not  bear  money  to  be  spent  upon 
himself,  and  many  a  kindly  rebuke  have  his  wife  and  daughters  re- 
ceived for  having  bought  him  an  expensive  article  of  dress  or 
ornament,  when  a  cheaper  one,  as  he  thought,  might  have  answered 
the  purpose  equally  well.  It  was  thus  a  standing  difficulty  with  his 
children  to  find  a  suitable  present  for  him  on  his  birthday.  He 
had  no  wants,  and  he  did  not  like  superfluities  ;  while  they,  on  their 
part,  were  not  easy  if  they  let  the  day  pass  by  unnoticed.  It  was 
thus  no  figure  of  speech,  but  the  literal  truth  that  he  spoke  in  the 
hearing  of  his  indefatigable  lady-secretary.  Miss  Gaster,  a  few  days 
before  his  death.  His  illness  was  even  then  heavy  upon  him,  though 
nobody  had  as  yet  begun  to  fear  that  it  was  his  last  ;  and  as  he 
took  his  short  daily  walk,  the  strong  man  was  obliged  to  lean  for 
support  on  the  arm  of  his  companion.  A  basket  of  fine  and  fresh 
strawberries  in  a  shop  window  caught  his  eye.  '  How  I  should  like 
to  have  some  ! '  he  said.  *  Let  us  go  in  and  get  them,'  replied  his 
companion.  They  went  in  and  asked  the  price.  It  was  half  a 
guinea.  *  I  never  spent  so  much  as  that  in  my  life  upon  myself  !  ' 
he  said,  and  abruptly  left  the  shop.  And  so  too,  after  his  death, 
there  was  hardly  a  ring,  or  a  pin,  or  a  piece  of  jewellery  of  any  kind 
to  be  found  among  his  personal  effects  which  could  be  given  to  his 
dearest  friends  to  serve  as  a  personal  memento  of  him.  And  yet  he 
had  'held  the  gorgeous  East  in  fee.'  Of  a  man  so  simple  and  so 
self-sacrificing  to  possess  no  material  memento  was,  perhaps,  after 
all,  the  best  of  all  mementoes. 

But  what  he  declined  to  spend  upon  himself  he  gave  freely  enough 
to  others.  Not  that  he  ever  gave  at  random  or  lavishly.  He  gave 
only  after  enquiry  and  with  discrimination.  The  luxury  of  giving 
he  always  felt  was  one  of  the  luxuries  of  which  he  would  have  to 
give  the  strictest  account.  Few  men  have  therefore  done  more 
good,  and  few,  certainly,  have  done  less  harm  by  their  thousand 
acts  of  kindness.  His  left  hand  seldom  knew  what  his  right  hand 
did.  His  wife,  his  successive  secretaries  and,  in  some  measure,  I 
may  add,  his  biographer,  can  form  a  rough  idea — and  it  is  not  Sir 
John  Lawrence's  fault  that  even  they  can  do  so — of  the  number  of 


1859-63  HOME   LIFE   IN    ENGLAND.  325 

his  unnumbered  but  well-considered  acts  of  unostentatious  charity, 
and  of  the  ungrudging  expenditure  of  time  and  trouble  which  made 
up  so  large  a  part  of  the  sum  total  of  his  life.  '  I  never  knew,' 
said  the  clergyman  whose  striking  reminiscence  of  him  I  have 
already  quoted,  the  Rev.  J.  Smith  of  Lyme  Regis,  '  anyone  so  simple, 
so  prayful,  so  hardworking,  so  heroic.  He  is  one  of  the  few 
men  whom,  when  I  come  to  die,  I  shall  thank  God  that  I  have 
known.' 

'  His  religious  faith,'  says  she  who  knew  him  best,  'was  the  most 
beautiful  and  simple  I  have  ever  known.  "  Fear  God  and  keep  His 
commandments  "  was  the  rule  of  his  daily  life.  We  used  to  read 
the  Bible  together  every  day,  and  I  have  now  by  me  the  large-print 
volumes  he  used  latterly,  with  his  marks  at  the  different  passages 
which  particularly  interested  him.' 

Captain  Eastwick,  who  has  had  special  opportunities  for  observ- 
ing what  he  records,  says  : — 

No  man  understood  better  than  Lord  Lawrence  that  the  living  for 
others  is  the  first  step  towards  living  for  God.  The  extent  to  which  he 
laboured  in  this  sphere  of  Christian  charity  is  known  only  to  the  cherished 
partner  of  his  earthly  pilgrimage,  the  partaker  of  his  joys  and  sorrows, 
and  the  sole  sharer  of  every  secret  of  his  inner  life.  In  his  charities,  as 
in  every  step  he  took  in  life,  Lord  Lawrence  was  not  influenced  by  spas- 
modic impulses,  but  acted  upon  system,  upon  a  deep  and  abiding  sense 
df  duty  to  God  and  to  his  neighbour.  From  the  earliest  period  of  my 
acquaintance  with  him  he  was  a  decided  Christian  ;  a  simple.  God-fear- 
ing man  who,  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  translated  into  daily  practice  the 
precepts  of  the  Bible,  of  which  sacred  volume  he  was,  to  my  certain 
knowledge,  a  daily  assiduous  and  meditative  reader.  I  have  often  seen 
him  when  his  sight  had  grown  too  dim  to  allow  of  his  reading  other 
books,  spelling  out  slowly,  with  his  finger  on  the  page,  a  few  verses  from 
a  New  Testament  printed  in  large  type.  His  majestic  countenance  wore 
a  mournful  yet  resigned  expression,  and  when  I  thought  of  the  depriva- 
tion it  must  be  to  a  man  of  his  strong  will  and  independent  nature,  my 
heart  was  so  full  that  I  could  hardly  refrain  from  tears. 

Lord  Lawrence  gave  the  impression  as  of  one  walking  in  the  presence 
of  an  Omnipotent,  All-merciful,  All-just  Master,  to  whom  he  solemnly 
believed  he  was  to  render  hereafter  an  account  of  the  deeds  done  in  the 
body.  He  made  no  professions,  and  rarely  originated  religious  topics 
in  our  conversations,  though  he  did  not  object  to  talk  on  the  theological 
([uestions  of  the  day  when  I  mooted  them.  He  had  a  great  aversion  to 
that  peculiar  phraseology  wliich  some  well-meaning  people  use  in  speak- 
ing on  relii^ious  matters.  But  when  treating  such  subjects,  his  tone  was 
simple,  unaffected,  and  eminently  religious.  It  was  evident  that  they 
were  familiar  to  his  mind  and  thou<rhts.   He  seldom  read  what  are  called 


326  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

'  religious  books  ;  '   for  he  used  to  remark  that  they  did   not  help  him  as 
the  Bible  did. 

He  expressed  ia  his  life  rather  than  in  words  the  central,  all-per- 
vading belief  which  dominated  and  directed  his  whole  being.  His  own 
views  of  the  fundamental  truths  of  the  Christian  Faith,  as  I  have  heard 
him  state  them,  were  simple  and  clear.  He  had  no  fancy  for  specula- 
tion or  for  strifes  of  words.  He  built  his  faith  on  the  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture, freely  admitting  that  there  were  many  things  which  he  could  nei- 
ther understand  nor  explain,  but  which  he  was  content  to  accept  as  the 
revealed  Word  of  God,  who  in  His  own  good  time  would  make  all  things 
clear  to  those  who  trusted  in  Him.  I  recollect  once  when  some  one  in 
conversation  had  been  deprecating  prayer  for  rain  as  useless  to  change 
the  order  of  things.  Lord  Lawrence  said  to  me  afterwards,  '  We  are  told 
to  pray,  and  that  our  prayers  will  be  answered,  and  that  is  sufficient  for 
me.' 

But  while  Sir  John  Lawrence's  domestic  life  and  enjoyments 
were  such  as  I  have  described  them,  he  was  also  working  steadily, 
day  by  day,  at  the  Indian  Council.  It  was  work  somewhat  differ- 
ent both  in  degree  and  in  kind  from  that  with  which  he  had  been 
familiar  for  thirty  years  past  in  India.  Unfriendly  critics  indeed 
of  the  Indian  Council  have  spoken  of  their  work  as  '  laborious  idle- 
ness.' But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  then,  as  it  is  now,  work  of 
real  interest,  and  it  involved  then,  to  a  degree  which  it  is  impossi- 
ble that  it  can  do  now,  the  discussion  of  changes  of  fundamental 
importance,  nothing  less,  in  fact,  than  the  reconstruction  of  the 
shaken  fabric  of  our  Indian  Empire.  How  did  Sir  John  Lawrence 
like  his  work,  and  how  did  his  work  and  his  colleagues  like  him  ? 

There  was,  necessarily,  much  in  the  position  which  a  man  of  his 
experience,  his  knowledge,  and  his  autocra,tic  temperament  could 
not  altogether  relish.  He  had  served  on  a  Board  once  before  in 
his  life,  had  been  the  ruling  spirit  upon  it,  and  had  at  least  pos- 
sessed the  satisfaction  of  feeling  that  its  resolutions,  after  many 
heart-burnings  and  wearisome  discussions,  were  almost  always 
translated  into  acts.  Yet  he  had  never  liked  it.  He  was  not  fitted, 
he  remarked,  to  run  in  triple  harness,  and  how  would  he  like  now 
to  be  one  of  a  team  of  sixteen,  to  be  a  member  of  a  Board,  that  is, 
which  was  consultative  only,  and  whose  resolutions  might  be  ha- 
bitually over-ruled  by  a  Secretary  of  State  who  must  always  change 
with  the  government  of  the  day,  and  with  whom  he  might  after  all 
not  find  that  he  had  much  in  common  ?  Thus,  though  he  was 
proud  of  the  offer  which  had  been  made  so  warmly  to  him  by 
Lord  Stanley,  and  was  glad  still  to  have  a  voice,  if  not  a  hand  in 
the  government  of  the  country  in  which  he  had  spent  his  life,  he 


1S59-63  HOME   LIFE   IN    ENGLAND.    -■  327 

was  not  able  to  look  forward  to  his  work  at  the  India  Office  with 
unmixed  satisfaction. 

The  first  meeting  of  the  newly-formed  Council  had  taken  place 
in  the  autumn  of  1858.  It  contained  a  fair  mixture  of  old  names 
and  new,  of  Conservatives  and  of  Reformers.  Among  them  were 
men  so  well  known  in  Indian  circles  as  Hogg,  Mills,  Mangles, 
Prinsep,  Eastwick,  Willoughby,  Cantley,  Macnaghten,  and  Raw- 
linson.  Lord  Stanley  was,  of  course,  the  President,  and  Sir  Fred- 
erick Currie  was  selected  by  him  as  Vice-President.  Sir  John 
Lawrence  took  his  seat  at  the  Council  Board  on  April  1 1  of  the  fol- 
lowing year — very  soon,  that  is,  after  his  return  from  India  ;  and 
in  a  private  diary,  which  was  kept  by  one  of  his  colleagues,  and ' 
was,  of  course,  intended  originally  for  no  eye  but  his  ovv-n,  but 
which  has  now  been  confided  to  me,  I  find  a  few  entries  relating 
to  my  subject,  which  have,  at  least,  the  merits  of  freshness  and  of 
life.  In  other  words,  they  are  the  first  impressions  of  a  highly 
competent  observer,  and,  as  such,  are  worth  reproducing  here. 

April  II,  1859. — Interview  with  Sir  J.  L.  Plain,  blunt,  straightfor- 
ward manner  ;  a  man  of  action  ;  the  man  to  change  the  system  in  India. 
We  must  get  out  of  the  old  groove  ;  we  must  trust  more  to  men  and 
less  to  regulations. 

April  11. — Long  conversation  with  Sir  J.  L.  He  thinks  the  system  in 
India  must  be  greatly  changed  to  keep  pace  with  the  times.  We  must 
get  better  men  forward  and  give  more  power  to  individuals.  Several 
interesting  anecdotes  of  the  late  eventful  times.  Evidently,  a  man  of 
action  ;  full  of  energy  and  self-reliance  and  fearlessness  of  responsibility. 

May  3. — Sir  J.  L.  evidently  requires  rest;  complains  of  giddiness  and 
pain  in  his  head,  if  called  upon  to  concentrate  his  attention  on  any  work. 
The  medical  men  in  India  told  him  he  was  travelling  towards  paralysis 
of  the  brain.  He  has  the  strongest  possible  opinion  on  the  necessity  for 
a  local  army  in  India,  removed  from  all  interferences  on  the  part  of  the 
Horse  Guards.  So  strong  are  his  feelings  on  the  subject,  that  he  said 
that  if  it  were  ruled  otherwise,  he  would  resign  his  seat  in  Council,  as  he 
was  quite  sure  disaster  would  be  the  result  !  Sees  no  objection  to  an 
optional  Bible-class  in  Government  schools  in  India. 

May  30. — He  is  greatly  dissatisfied  with  the  state  of  things  in  India; 
looks  to  the  future  with  anxiety  ;  he  says  that  we  ought  to  have  100,000 
men  in  India,  capable  of  being  massed  at  any  point. 

October  7. — He  spoke  despondingly  of  his  own  health,  said  he  disliked 
the  Council  and  thought  he  would  resign.  He  felt  that  the  members  had 
no  real  power.  '  It  is  my  misfortune,'  he  said,  'to  have  a  decided  opin- 
ion on  most  subjects  connected  with  India,  and  nothing  shall  deter  me 
from  expressing  it,  whether  I  offend  Royal  Highnesses,  or  Cabinet  Min- 
isters, or  any  one.     I  never  have  eaten  dirt,  and  I  never  will  if  I  can  help 


328  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

it.  I  have  always  observed  that  those  who  do  eat  dirt  have  afterwards 
to  expectorate  it.'  He  thought  the  system  of  the  India  House  very  de- 
fective; hated  show,  but  hked  to  have  the  power  of  being  hospitable  ; 
would  wish  to  go  away  for  a  year  and  recover  his  health.  He  spoke 
freely  and  unreservedly  on  all  subjects.  I  like  him  much  ;  think  he  is  a 
thorough,  honest,  energetic  man  of  the  Cromwell  stamp,  full  of  self-reli- 
ance and  practical  good  sense. 

November  17. — Walked  home  with  Sir  J.  L.  He  said  he  would  give 
much  to  speak  like  Gladstone.  He  thought  he  should  never  speak  ;  it 
was  too  late  in  life  to  begin. 

December  14. — Sir  J.  L.  said  that  his  brother  Henry  had  told  him 
that  he  had  attended  the  council  of  war  before  Sobraon,  and  that  all  he 
.recollected  was  Lord  Gough  saying,  '  I  never  was  bate,  and  I  never  will 
be  bate.' 

December  2)1. — In  my  walk  home  with  Sir  J.  L.  two  nights  ago  he  told  me 
that  when  he  quitted  tlie  Punjab  there  were  no  arrears,  he  never  allowed 
any;  he  always  read  all  the  papers  himself,  and  despatched  them  at  once. 
He  sav/  no  difficulty  in  keeping  work  down,  provided  only  there  was 
method  and  industry.  But  then  he  was  obliged  to  employ  every  frag- 
ment of  his  time.  There  was  none  wasted  from  the  hour  he  got  up  to 
the  hour  he  went  to  bed,  and  he  was  always  looking  after  those  under 
him.  Temple  was  a  first  rate  man  of  business,  very  ready  with  his  pen, 
and  full  of  talent;  Macpherson,  steady  and  methodical;  Herbert  Ed- 
wardes,  very  able,  would  make  a  first  rate  Member  of  Council ;  Mac- 
leod,  sensible,  with  a  great  knowledge  of  India.  I  wish  they  would  make 
Sir  J.  L.  Governor-General.  We  need  the  best  man  England  can  give 
us,  and  one  who  (?an  walk  alone. 

February  11,  i860. — Sir  J.  L.  offered  the  Government  of  Bombay. 
He  refused  it. 

April  15. — Went  with  Sir  J.  L.  to  hear  Louis  Blanc  on  the  Salons  of 
Paris  at  the  time  of  Madame  de  Defford,  etc. 

yuly  7. — Called  on  Lord  Stanley,  who  said  he  thought  it  was  a  mis- 
take that  the  Council  were  excluded  from  Parliament.  It  would  not  do 
to  have  old  stagers  who  defended  everything,  but  Sir  J.  L.  would  be 
invaluable  as  the  representative  of  the  more  advanced  school  of  Indian 
politicians. 

February  7,  1861. — Sir  John  Lawrence  spoke  strongly  on  the  Opposi- 
tion side  on  the  military  question  discussed  to-day;  division  seven  to 
seven  ;  Sir  Charles  Wood  gave  the  casting  vote.  He,  Sir  J.  L.,  does  not 
think  that  the  Indian  expenditure  will  be  brought  within  the  income,  and 
is  dissatisfied  with  the  way  business  is  done  in  the  office. 

March  25,  1862. — He  said  that  if  it  rested  with  him  he  would  emi- 
grate. He  did  not  like  the  trammels  of  English  life.  He  did  not  know 
what  to  do  with  his  boys. 

June  24. — With  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  see  the  pictures  of  '  The  Derby 
Day,'  and  the  '  Railway  Train,'  by  Frith. 

July  24. — Beat  Sir  John  in  a  game  of  chess. 


1859-63  HOME   LIFE   IN    ENGLAND.  329 

February  25,  1863. — Went  to  a  meeting-  at  the  Society  of  Arts,  Mr, 
Cheatham  read  a  paper  on  cotton.  Mr.  Bailey  in  the  chair.  Sir  John 
Lawrence  spoke. 

March  16. — Went  with  Sir  John  to  the  Dean  of  Westminster  to  ask 
permission  that  Outram's  remains  should  rest  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

The  remains  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  it  may  be  remarked  here,  are 
now  lying  hard  by  the  remains  of  Sir  James  Outram.  No  formal 
request  was  made  or  needed  to  be  made  to  the  then  Dean  of  West- 
minster on  the  subject.  The  voice  of  the  nation,  no  less  than  the 
voice  of  the  most  Catholic  and  Christian  of  Deans,  Dean  Stanley, 
demanded  that  it  should  be  so,  and  the  noble  bust  of  Sir  John 
Lawrence,  made  by  Mr.  Woolner,  dominates,  or  seems  to  dominate, 
the  whole  of  that  part  of  the  venerable  Abbey. 

March  20. — To  the  Dean  of  Westminster  with  Sir  John  Lawrence  to 
fix  the  hour  and  select  a  site  for  the  grave.  Engaged  in  various  ways 
about  the  funeral  arrangements  the  whole  day. 

March  25. — With  Sir  John  Lawrence  and  Willoughby  to  attend  Out- 
ram's funeral.  The  sergeants  of  the  78th  Regiment  came  up  from 
Shorncliffe  to  bear  the  body  of  their  old  commander  to  the  grave.  A 
touching  incident. 

November  28. — Heard  of  Lord  Elgin's  serious  illness.  Who  will  be 
his  successor  .''  Will  the  Ministry  offer  the  appointment  to  Lawrence  ? 
It  would  be  right  and  I  think  it  would  be  popular.  It  would  be  a  fitting 
reward  for  his  great  services.  The  only  question  is  whether  his  health 
would  enable  him  to  bear  the  weight  of  such  a  charge. 

December  i. — Heard  of  the  appointment  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  suc- 
ceed Lord  Elgin.  Wrote  to  him  and  to  Lady  Lawrence.  Proud  as  she 
must  feel  at  the  recognition  of  her  husband's  great  deeds  and  noble 
character,  the  prospect  of  a  separation  of  many  months  must  fill  her 
heart  with  anxiety. 

December  7. — I  took  leave  of  Sir  John  Lawrence, 

These  extracts  speak  for  themselves.  They  possess  something 
of  the  interest  which  a  diary  written  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  him- 
self would  have  had,  while  they  also  faithfully  record  the  impres- 
sions which  he  made,  day  by  day,  on  the  mind  of  a  most  observant 
and  appreciative  companion.  They  exhibit  him  in  his  new  sphere 
of  work,  still  active  and  self-reliant,  impatient  of  delays  and  of  cir- 
cumlocution, fearless  in  speaking  his  mind,  anxious,  most  anxious 
as  to  the  future  of  India,  but  clear  in  his  ideas  as  to  what  she 
recjuired.  I  have  quoted  from  them  at  some  length  partly  because 
of  the  scattered  lights  they  throw  on  his  public  work  at  a  time  of 
which,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  few  written  memorials  remain  ; 


330  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

and  partly,  because  it  is  the  only  period  of  his  life  at  v.hich  I  have 
had  the  advantage,  so  invaluable  to  a  biographer,  and  so  seldom, 
by  the  necessities  of  the  case,  denied  to  him,  of  anything  approach- 
ing to  a  contemporary  journal. 

But  to  return  to  my  narrative.  Sir  John  Lawrence's  thoughts 
during  this  period,  as  the  few  letters  in  my  possession  show,  often 
recurred  regretfully  to  the  Punjab  and  his  friends  there,  and  this 
feeling  seems  to  have  become  more  intense  as  the  time  passed  on. 
Thus  from  three  letters  written  to  Dr.  Hathaway  in  three  consecu- 
tive years  I  extract  the  following. 

December  12,  1859. 

I  like  England  very  well,  and  do  not  regret  having  left  India,  though, 
I  confess,  I  miss  my  old  friends  in  the  Punjab.  I  do  not  like  the  work 
in  the  India  House,  and  it  does  not  agree  with  me  over  much.  I  should 
be  far  better  were  I  to  do  nothing  but  run  about  and  see  sights  and  be 
in  the  open  air. 

In  the  following  year,  he  writes  : — ■ 

March  18,  i860. 

I  am  amused  at  your  description  of  'Alenho'  '  and  its  changes.  The 
old  place  did  very  v,'ell  for  both  Henry  and  myself  in  our  time,  and  I 
should  have  been  content  to  have  gone  on  in  it  so  long  as  I  had  remained. 
I  like  England  very  well  on  the  whole.  There  is  indeed  much  in  it  to 
like.  To  be  with  one's  children  in  a  pleasant  climate  is  a  great  gain. 
Still  iht  old  associations  often  lead  back  the  memory  to  India. 

And  a  whole  year  later,  March  8,  1861,  after  alluding  sadly  to 
the  recent  death  of  his  little  infant  daughter,  he  writes  : — ■ 

I  am  constantly  thinking  of  the  Punjab  and  all  that  goes  on  there,  and 
sometimes  wish  myself  back  again  there.  Assuredly,  one  learns  to 
appreciate  India  after  one  leaves  it.  Here  all  seems  strange  and  out  ot 
place. 

The  accidents  of  political  life  in  England  had  soon  deprived 
Sir  John  Lawrence  of  the  pleasure  ai>d  satisfaction  of  serving  under 
Lord  Stanley  ;  for  on  Saturday,  June  11, 1859,  exactly  three  months 
after  he  had  taken  his  seat,  the  short-lived  Conservative  Ministry 
were  defeated  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  a  majority  of  thirteen. 
Lord  Derby  at  once  resigned.  On  June  14  his  son  Lord  Stanley 
took  his  leave  of  the  India  Council,  and  the  same  pen  which  I  have 
so  recently  quoted,  thus  sums  up  the  impression  left  by  him  on  the 
minds  of  the  Council  generally.  It  was  an  impression  shared,  I 
have  good  reason  to  believe,  by  Sir  John  Lawrence. 

'  Al-en-ho  was  a  family  pet  name  for  the  Lahore  house  given  to  it  by  Mrs. 
Henry  Lawrence  after  her  three  children,  ^/ick,  Henry,  and  Honono.. 


1859-63  HOME   LIFE  IN   ENGLAND.  331 

We  shall  not  soon  find  a  more  courteous,  painstaking-,  enlightened 
Secretary  of  State  for  India.  He  has  the  public  good  at  heart.  He  is  a 
true  patriot,  somewhat  cold  and  reserved  in  manner,  but  very  accessible, 
and  most  anxious  to  gather  information  from  all  sources. 

What  Lord  Stanley,  in  his  turn,  thought  of  the  man  whom  he 
had  taken  such  pains  to  place  upon  his  Council,  he  has  stated,  at 
length,  in  his  noble  speech  at  the  Mansion  House  to  which  I  have 
already  more  than  once  referred.  The  gist  of  the  whole  is  prob- 
ably contained  in  a  couple  of  sentences,  which  are  well  worth 
transcribing  here.  'Malice  itself,'  he  said,  'has  never  tastened 
upon  Lord  Lawrence's  career  the  imputation  of  one  discreditable  in- 
cident or  one  unworthy  act.'  To  appreciate  the  full  significance  of 
this  remark,  we  need  only  recollect  that  the  whole  of  that  career  was 
passed  in  the  full  light  of  day,  that  in  India  as  in  England  the 
tongue  of  gossip  and  of  scandal  is  never  silent,  and  that  the  whole 
character  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  such  as  to  expose  himself  to  the 
dislikes  or  misunderstandings  of  weaker  men.  The  other  sentence 
is  not  less  striking.  '  The  impression  he  left  upon  my  mind  was 
that  of  a  certain  heroic  simplicity.  Even  if  his  opportunity  had 
never  come,  you  felt  you  were  in  the  presence  of  a  man  capable  of 
accomplishing  great  things  if  they  were  wanted,  and  capable  also 
of  leaving  the  credit  of  them  to  anybody  who  chose  to  take  it.' 

Lord  Stanley  was  succeeded  by  Sir  Charles  Wood,  who,  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  Board  of  Control,  had  been  author  of  the  famous  Edu- 
cation Despatch  of  1854.  He  was  now  called  back  to  the  helm 
with  fuller  power  and  less  divided  responsibility,  but  at  a  period 
of  almost  unexampled  difficulty.  Lord  Stanley  had  been  unable, 
with  all  his  energy  and  insight,  to  carry  through  in  his  very  short 
tenure  of  office  many  measures  of  the  first  importance.  Everything 
in  India  was  in  disorder,  and  almost  everything  needed  reconstruc- 
tion. The  arrangements  for  the  Councils  of  the  Governor-General 
and  of  the  Minor  Presidencies,  the  construction  of  New  Courts  of 
Judicature,  the  re-settlement  of  the  taxes,  the  re-organisation  of  the 
finances,  the  creation  of  a  paper  currency,  the  codification  of  the 
law,  above  all,  the  amalgamation  of  the  Queen's  with  the  old  '  local ' 
European  army  in  India,  and  the  reconciliation  of  conflicting  in- 
terests of  every  kind — these  were  some  of  the  questions  which  had 
to  be  solved  by  the  new  Secretary  of  State  with  the  help  of  his  newly 
formed  Council.  It  was  fortunate  for  India  that  Sir  Charles 
Wood  was  a  man  who  cared  nothing  for  popularity,  was  familiar 
with  all  the  details  of  Indian  administration,  was  ready  to  hear  all 
that  was  to  be  said  on  both  sides  of  a  question,  and  was  prepared 


332  LIFE    OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

to  throw  himself,  heart  and  soul,  into  the  stimulating  task  of  re- 
modelling and  governing  an  empire.  It  is  impossible  here  to  give 
any  account  of  his  great  measures.  Of  some  few  of  them  I  shall  have 
to  say  something  hereafter.  In  many  or  in  most  of  them  he  was 
warmly  supported  by  Sir  John  Lawrence,  and  only  on  the  question 
of  the  retention  or  abolition  of  the  old  local  European  Army,  does 
there  appear  to  have  been  any  strong  difference  of  opinion.  Justly 
proud  of  what  the  soldiers  of  the  Company  had  done,  the  whole 
weight  of  the  old  Indians  in  the  Council  was  brought  to  bear  in 
favour  of  its  preservation.  But  the  little  known,  though  highly 
dangerous  '  White  Mutiny  '  as  it  was  called,  which  took  place  in 
that  Army  when  they  were  somewhat  cavalierly  transferred,  without 
their  consent  and  without  even  so  much  as  a  fresh  bounty,  from  the 
service  of  the  Company  to  that  of  the  Crown,  determined  Sir 
Charles  Wood,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  his  Council,  in  spite  also 
of  his  own  previous  opinion,  to  carry  through  its  abolition  at  any 
cost.  I  will  only  add  that,  in  spite  of  the  occasional  friction  which 
is,  I  suppose,  inevitable  between  a  strong-willed  Secretary  of  State 
and  an  equally  strong-willed  member  of  his  Council  or  Governor- 
General,  the  warm  friendship  between  Sir  Charles  Wood  and  Sir 
John  Lawrence  was  never,  for  a  moment,  interrupted. 

The  Under  Secretary  of  State  for  India  was  Lord  de  Grey,  now 
the  Marquis  of  Ripon,  and  I  am  fortunately  able  to  record  the  im- 
pressions made  on  him  at  the  time  by  Sir  John  Lawrence.  This 
letter,  which  I  am  about  to  quote,  has  a  special  interest,  independ- 
ently of  its  contents,  as  coming  from  the  man  who  is  so  worthily 
filling  Sir  John  Lawrence's  place  in  India,  and  carrying  out  his 

work. 

Benares  :  November  29,  i88i. 

My  dear  Mr.  Bosworth  Smith. —  ...  I  should  be  only  too  glad  that 
you  should  give  to  the  world  any  letters  of  mine  which  are  calculated 
to  show  my  deep  admiration  and  respect  for  Lord  Lawrence's  great 
abilities  and  noble  character.  You  are  quite  right  in  thinking  that  it  is 
my  desire  in  the  position  which  I  now  hold  to  walk  in  his  footsteps  so 
far  as  it  is  possible  for  me  to  do  so. 

You  ask  me  to  tell  you  anything  specially  characteristic  about  Lord 
Lawrence.  At  the  present  moment  there  is  only  one  thing  that  strikes 
me,  which  you  would  not  perhaps  be  likely  to  learn  better  and  more 
perfectly  from  others,  whose  acquaintance  with  him  was  longer  and 
more  intimate  than  my  own.  I  shall  never  forget  the  kindness  which  he 
showed  to  me  when  I  was  Under  Secretary  ot  State  under  Sir  Charles 
Wood,  and  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  a  Member  of  the  Indian  Council. 
He  was  then  at  the  height  of  his  fame,  just  after  his  great  services  during 
the  Mutiny,  and  yet  he  was  always  ready  to  give  me,  though  only  an 


1859-63  HOME   LIFE   IN  ENGLAND.  333 

Under  Secretary,  every  assistance  and  information  in  his  power.  He 
would  come  and  sit  in  my  room  at  the  Office,  sometimes  for  an  hour  or 
more  together,  and  place  all  the  stores  of  his  Indian  knowledge  and  expe- 
rience at  my  disposal  with  a  kindliness,  a  simplicity,  and  a  modesty  of 
which  I  have  the  liveliest  recollection.  Here  was  a  man  whom  I  had 
pictured  to  myself  as  the  Saviour  of  an  Empire,  and  the  strong,  stern 
ruler  of  men,  who  would  yet  come,  day  after  day,  and  sit  by  my  fireside 
in  my  little  room  in  the  Westminster  Palace  Hotel,  where  the  India 
Office  then  was,  and  would  talk  to  me  upon  any  and  every  question 
upon  which  I  was  at  work,  as  if  he  had  nothing  else  to  do  except  to  help 
me  to  do  my  work  more  efficiently.  I  have  certainly  never  met  in  my 
experience  so  singular  and  so  winning  a  combination  of  greatness  and 
simplicity,  of  strength  and  modesty  as  was  to  be  found  in  Sir  John  Law- 
rence as  I  then  knew  him.  I  think  that  my  subsequent  acquaintance 
with  him  as  Governor-General,  when  I  was  Secretary  of  State,  and  in 
his  later  public  life  brought  more  prominently  before  me  his  remarkable 
love  of  justice.  But  I  shall  never  lose  the  impression  of  the  noble  sim- 
plicity of  his  character  which  I  received  upon  first  knowing  him. 

Lord  Canning  when  he  came  home  from  India  in  1862  came 
home  Hke  his  great  predecessor  Lord  Dalhousie — to  die.  Long 
before  he  left  India,  his  noble  character  had  come  to  be  appreciated, 
even  by  those  who  in  the  crisis  of  the  Mutiny  had  most  maligned 
and  misunderstood  him.  And  there  was  now  no  honour  which  the 
people  of  England  and  of  India — even  those  who,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  panic,  had  clamoured  most  fiercely  for  his  recall — would 
have  thought  to  be  beyond  his  deserts.  But  broken  down  by  anx- 
iety, by  work,  by  disease,  and  most  of  all,  perhaps,  by  the  loss  of 
his  equally  noble-hearted  wife,  the  only  honour  which  he  received, 
tlie  only  honour  which  he  would  have  cared  to  receive,  was  an  early 
grave  in  Westminster  Abbey  ;  and  within  a  few  weeks  of  his  arrival, 
an  illustrious  son  was  laid  by  the  side  of  a  hardly  more  illustrious 
father. 

It  had  been  generally  expected  that  the  man  who  all  were  agreed, 
was  by  his  experience  and  his  past  services  pre-eminently  entitled 
to  succeed  Lord  Canning,  the  man  who  though  he  differed  from 
him  much  in  aptitudes  and-  in  temperament,  resembled  him  in  his 
highest  quality  of  all,  his  moral  courage  and  his  resistance  to  the 
passions  of  the  hour,  would  be  selected  to  fill  his  place.  But  this 
was  not  to  be.  The  choice  of  the  Ministry  fell  upon  Lord  Elgin,  a 
man  of  proved  capacity,  who  had  he  succeeded  a  few  years  earlier 
to  the  post  would  certainly  have  proved  a  worthy  link  in  the  un- 
broken chain  of  great  men,  who  from  Lord  Ellenborough  to  Lord 
Northbrook  have  been  called  to  rule  India.     That  his  promise  at 


334  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1859-63      j 

the  time  of  his  appointment  was  high,  no  one  can  doubt  who  recol-  | 
lects  the  services  which  he  had  rendered  to  England  in  Jamaica,  in  ! 
Canada,  and  in  China.  But  the  Fates  were  against  him.  His  ■ 
working  days  were  over  ;  and  before  the  second  year  of  his  Vice-  ■ 
royalty  had  passed,  he  was  attacked  with  a  fatal  illness  while  tra-  I 
versing  the  Himalayas  at  a  point  12,000  feet  above  the  sea.  ' 

And  now  who  was  to  succeed  him  ?    A  traditionary  maxim,  which 
had  come  almost  to  have  the  force  of  law,  had  been  handed  down 
from  the  days  when  Mr.  Canning  was  President  of  the  Board  of 
Control,  that  hardly  any  concurrence  of  circumstances  could  justify     ' 
the  Company  in  appointing  one  of  their  own  servants  to  the  highest      ' 
dignity  in  their  gift.     With  the  one  exception  of  Sir  John  Shore,  no 
civilian  since  the  time  of  Warren  Hastings  had  been  appointed  to     j 
that  splendid  office  ;  for  Sir  George  Barlow  and  Sir  Charles  Metcalfe,      I 
who  had  filled  it  temporarily,  had  not  been  allowed  to  retain  it  in 
permanence.     It  was  part  and  parcel  of  the  same  general  under-      , 
standing  that  the  Governor-General  must  be  a  Peer  of  the  realm 
and  must  have  risen  to  something  like  political  distinction  at  home 
or  in  the  colonies.     Obedient  to  this  unwritten  law,  the  ministry  of 
Lord  Palmerston  had  passed  over  what  many  thought  to  be  the 
superlative  claims  of  John  Lawrence,  while  the  laurels  of  the  Mutiny 
were  still  fresh  upon  his  brow,  and  had  chosen  Lord  Elgin  in  his 
stead.     Why  should  they  think  differently  now  ? 

Possibly  even  now,  the  names  of  one  and  of  another  candidate 
who  possessed  the  conventional  qualifications  may  have  occurred 
to  Sir  Charles  Wood.  But  the  fate  of  the  three  preceding  Gover- 
nors-General, who  had  followed  one  another  with  such  startling 
rapidity  to  their  last  home,  seemed  like  a  warning  to  English  states- 
men that  '  the  paths  of  glory,'  of  Indian  glory  at  least,  '  lead  but  to 
the  grave.'  Possibly  Ministers  themselves  shrunk  from  asking  any 
one  who  had  not  been  acclimatised  to  India  to  accept  so  deadly  an 
honour.  More  probably  they  agreed  in  thinking,  and  not  least 
amongst  them  Sir  Charles  Wood  himself  who  knew  him  best,  that 
the  claims  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  were  now  superlative,  and  that  no 
more  fitting  tribute  could  be  offered  to  the  splendid  history  of  the 
just  extinguished  East  Indian  Company,  than  to  break  through 
precedent  and  raise  to  the  Viceroyalty  the  most  illustrious  of  its 
servants.  In  any  case  it  is  understood  that  what  clenched  the  ap- 
pointment beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt  was  the  fact  that  a  bor- 
der war  which  had  broken  out  against  the  fanatics  of  Sitanaon  the 
North-West  frontier  and  an  adjoining  Afghan  tribe  seemed  to  be 
assuming  dangerous  dimensions,  that  Sir  Neville  Chamberlain  had 


1859-63  HOME   LIFE   IN    ENGLAND.  335 

received  a  check,  and  that  it  was  likely  that  the  flame  of  revolt 
would  spread  from  one  warlike  tribe  to  another.  Who  so  fit  to  deal 
with  this  particular  danger,  who  so  certain  to  preserve  the  peace 
as  the  man  who  had  tamed  and  conciliated  the  warlike  races  of  the 
Punjab,  and  whose  name  was  a  household  word,  regarded,  some- 
times with  love,  sometimes  with  fear,  but  always  with  awe  and 
veneration,  by  each  wild  chief  of  each  wild  tribe  along  the  danger- 
ous frontier  of  six  hundred  miles  ? 

In  any  case,  on  the  morning  of  November  30,  1863,  Sir  Charles 
Wood  looked  into  Sir  John  Lawrence's  room  at  the  India  Office 
with  the  pregnant  announcement,  '  You  are  to  go  to  India  as  Gov- 
ernor-General. Wait  here  till  I  return  from  Windsor  with  the 
Queen's  approval.'  It  was  not  till  long  after  office  hours  that  Sir 
Charles  returned  with  the  warm  approval  which  he  had  sought  and 
had  obtained,  and  now  the  '  imperial  appointment,  which  is  the 
greatest  honor  England  has  to  give,  except  the  government  of  her- 
self,' belonged  to  John  Lawrence. 

When  the  news  (says  Lady  Lawrence)  of  Lord  Elgin's  death  arrived, 
I  remember  my  husband  coming  to  my  room,  while  I  was  ill  from  some 
trifling  ailment,  and  telling  me  what  had  happened.  I  don't  know  why, 
but  my  heart  sunk  at  once,  and  I  said  to  him,  '  Perhaps  you  will  be  asked 
to  succeed  him.'  Neither  of  us  expected  anything  of  the  kind.  .Still  the 
idea  took  possession  of  me.  He  went  to  the  Office  as  usual.  Visitors 
came  and  went  that  day.  But  my  thoughts  ran  on  nothing  else.  He  did 
not  come  home  by  his  usual  train,  and  I  became  still  more  anxious,  and 
so  restless  that  I  could  not  keep  still  for  a  moment.  At  last,  when  he 
arrived  quite  late  at  night,  he  brought  the  news  that  he  was  to  go  to 
India  as  Viceroy.  I  suppose  few  people  would  believe  that  this  announce- 
ment made  me  miserable.  I  could  think  of  nothing  but  our  broken-up 
home,  another  separation  from,  our  children,  and  all  the  risk  of  climate 
and  hard  work  for  him.  Naturally,  he  felt  otherwise  and  was  proud  of 
the  position  offered  him.  At  my  earnest  request,  he  consulted  two  medi- 
cal men  before  he  quite  decided.  But  their  verdict  was  favourable,  and 
so  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  face  the  trial,  and  begin  the  necessary 
preparations  as  soon  as  possible,  for  he  was  to  start  at  once.  I  was  to 
follow  in  the  autumn.  I  can  never  forget  those  last  days  ;  all  the  hurry 
and  worry,  the  constant  demands  on  his  time,  the  private  arrangements 
he  wished  to  make  for  his  family,  the  kind  friends  so  ready  to  help — Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Cater  among  the  most  prominent.  A  very  dear  and  valued 
friend,  Mr.  Jay,  who  had  formerly  been  a  chaplain  at  Lahore,  came  to 
see  us  for  an  hour  or  two  before  he  left.  He  had  prayer  with  us  all  be- 
fore he  took  leave,  and  a  very  solemn  and  impressive  meeting  it  was. 
At  last  the  parting  came.  Before  starting,  we  all  gathered  for  the  last 
time  round  the  drawing-room  fire,  and  he  made  each  child  say  a  hymn 


336  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1859-63 

to  him — Bertie,  who  was  Httle  more  than  two  years  old,  being  in  his 
arms.  He  left  home  about  7  p.m.  to  catch  the  night  mail  from  Charing 
Cross  ;  and  thus,  on  December  9,  1863,  closed  one  of  the  happiest  chap- 
ters in  our  happy  lives. 

It  adds  a  touch  of  pathos  to  this  account  to  explain  that  the 
'  Bertie  '  mentioned  in  it  was  Sir  John  Lawrence's  youngest  son, 
and  that  his  birth  at  Southgate  had  done  something  to  fill  the  gap 
so  recently  made  in  the  family  by  the  death  of  an  infant  daughter. 
The  moment  that  Sir  John  returned  from  his  work  at  the  India 
Office  he  might  have  been  seen,  if  it  was  a  summer's  evening,  tramp- 
ing over  the  fields  with  his  young  child  over  his  shoulders,  and  as 
the  boy  grew  older,  and  was  able  to  walk  alone,  he  would  follow 
his  father  about  like  a  dog,  trying  to  walk  as  he  did,  with  his  hands 
crossed  behind  him.  In  the  winter  evenings  he  would  keep  a  keen 
look-out  for  his  father's  arrival  at  the  door,  and  follow  him  into  his 
room,  where  they  would  play  together  by  the  hour  ;  and  after  Sir 
John  had  been  called  away  to  India,  it  was  long  before  the  child 
could  be  persuaded  that  the  usual  hour  in  the  afternoon  would  not 
bring  his  father  to  the  door  of  the  house  again.  Of  all  the  trials 
which  the  new  Governor-General  had  to  face  in  leaving  his  home,  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  there  was  no  trial  equal  to  that  of  leaving 
this  child  permanently  behind  him.  '  I  shall  never  see  Bertie  again  ! ' 
he  said,  and,  once  more,  the  strong-hearted  man  burst  into  tears. 
Not  that  he  was  looking  forward  to  his  own  death  in  India,  but  that 
he  knew  that  the  child  whom  he  did  look  forward  one  day  to  see 
again  in  the  flesh  could  not  be  the  same  child.  The  infant  would 
have  grown  into  a  boy  ;  the  long  hair  and  the  half  formed  words, 
and  the  simple  child-like  trust,  and  the  hundred  nameless  charms 
which  go  to  make  up  a  young  child,  would  be  clean  gone.  There 
was  something  in  the  thought  which  was  almost  as  hard  to  bear 
as  the  thought  of  death  itself.  Even  so,  I  have  known  one  who 
having  loved  with  a  tender  love  every  member  of  the  large  family 
in  which  he  had  been  brought  up,  and  having  been  loved  by  them 
in  turn,  was  able  when  he  was  brought  face  to  face  with  death,  to 
bear  with  a  strange  self-control  the  last  parting  from  a  brother  or  a 
sister — for  these  he  could,  in  some  sense,  hope  to  see  again  in  a 
world  where  there  is  no  death — but  who,  when  a  little  child,  not  his 
own,  which  had,  somehow,  wound  itself  into  his  heart  of  hearts, 
was  brought  to  his  bedside,  broke  down  utterly  with  the  thought 
that  that  child  at  all  events  he  would  never  see  again.  And  there 
are  few  of  us,  I  should  think,  who  have  ever  listened  by  the  open 
grave  of  those  we  love  to  St.  Paul's  grand  song  of  triumph  over 


1859-63  HOME   LIFE   IN    ENGLAND.  337 

death,  and  have  not  felt  something  of  a  jar  even  in  the  midst  of 
those  aerial  strains,  when  we  are  warned  or  promised  that  in  that 
unseen  world,  of  which  we  then,  perchance,  and  only  then  can 
catch  a  distant  glimpse,  '  we  shall  all  be  changed.'  For  it  is  to 
the  past,  which  we  know  and  love,  and  not  to  the  future,  which 
we  do  not  know  and  can  only  hope  that  we  may  one  day  love,  that 
the  torn  heart  clings  in  that  supreme  moment  with  inexpressible 
and  passionate  yearning. 

'  I  shall  never  see  Bertie  again  ! '  With  this  one  cry  of  irrepressi- 
ble tenderness,  John  Lawrence  buckled  on  again  the  armour  which 
he  had  laid  aside,  as  he  thought,  for  ever,  and  went  forth  with  half 
shattered  physical  strength,  but  with  a  courageous  heart,  to  grapple 
with  new  difficulties,  and  face  vaster  responsibilities  than  even  he 
had  ever  faced  before. 
VOL.  II. — 22 


CHAPTER  X. 

JOHN   LAWRENCE  AS  VICEROY   OF   INDIA.     1864. 

I  HAVE  now  reached  a  portion  of  my  work  which  I  have  all  along 
lelt  is  likely  to  prove  more  laborious  and  difficult,  as  well  as  in  some 
sense  less  interesting  and  less  remunerative  than  any  other  portion 
of  it.  How  am  I  to  deal  with  it  ?  Two  methods  seem  to  be  prac- 
ticable. I  may  attempt  from  Blue  Books  and  official  reports,  from 
published  monographs,  and  from  the  unpublished  piles  of  letters 
which  lie  before  me,  to  give  a  succinct  account  of  all  that  hap- 
pened in  India  during  the  Viceroyalty  of  Sir  John  Lawrence.  Or, 
on  the  other  hand,  I  may  aim  at  giving  a  general  sketch  in  which, 
while  I  dwell  at  some  length  on  anything  which  is  especially  inter- 
esting in  the  history  of  the  time,  my  chief  aim  will  be  to  give  a 
finishing  touch  or  two  to  what,  if  this  book  is  worthy  of  its  subject, 
ought  already  to  be  a  nearly  finished  portrait.  In  the  one  case  I 
should  attempt  a  history  of  India  during  the  Viceroyalty  of  John 
Lawrence  ;  in  the  other  a  sketch  of  John  Lawrence  as  its  Viceroy. 
For  many  reasons  I  have  determined  to  restrict  myself  as  much 
as  possible  to  the  latter.  But  it  is  due  to  my  readers,  more  espe- 
cially to  those  who  have  served  under  Sir  John  Lawrence  as  Viceroy 
and  may  be  disposed  to  regard  that  period  as  specially  important, 
to  indicate  what  my  reasons  are. 

To  begin  with,  a  succinct  history  of  India  during  the  Viceroyalty 
of  Sir  John  Lawrence  would  require  at  least  a  volume  to  itself,  and 
would  swell  the  bulk  of  this  biography,  already  sufficiently  formid- 
able, beyond  all  reasonable  dimensions. 

Secondly,  and  more  important,  his  Viceroyalty,  happily  for  India, 
was  not  what  is  usually  called  an  'eventful '  one.  It  was  a  period, 
not  of  wars  and  annexations,  but  of  peaceful  progress  and  pros- 
perity, chequered  only  or  chiefly  by  those  gigantic  physical  calami- 
ties to  which  India  has,  in  all  ages,  been  liable,  and  against  which 
no  adequate  precaution  has,  as  yet,  been  devised  even  by  the  most 
enterprising,  and  philanthropic,  and  far-sighted  of  her  rulers.  If  it 
be   true  generally  that  '  happy  are   the  people  whose  annals  are 

338 


i864         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY   OF    INDIA.  339 

vacant,'  it  is  pse-eminently  true  of  the  people  of  India.  But  a  period 
that  is  vacant  in  this  happy  sense  of  the  word  does  not  afford  much 
which  is  of  interest  to  the  general  reader. 

Thirdly,  and  more  important  still  ;  even  if  it  were  possible,  which 
probably  it  is  not,  to  steep  oneself  so  entirely  in  an  Indian  atmos- 
phere, as  to  enable  one  to  give  a  really  accurate  account  of  the  more 
difficult  questions  which  were  discussed  and  settled  during  this 
period,  it  would  still  be  a  question  whether  the  labour  would  not 
be,  in  great  measure,  thrown  away.  A  full  account,  for  instance, 
of  the  Land  Settlement  in  Oude  or  the  Punjab  would  be  useless  to 
the  very  few  who  understand  such  questions  already.  It  could 
hardly  be  made  either  intelligible  or  interesting  to  those  who  do  not. 

Lastly,  and  most  important  of  all  ;  however  accurate  a  history 
of  India  during  the  Viceroyalty  of  John  Lawrence  might  be,  the 
man,  as  I  have  remarked  already  when  treating  of  his  Chief-Com- 
missionership  of  the  Punjab,  would  still  be  in  danger  of  being  lost 
in  his  work,  very  often  in  the  driest  and  most  mechanical  details  of 
his  work  ;  and  thus,  the  main  object  which  I  have  endeavoured  to 
keep  in  view  throughout,  would  be  defeated.  A  biographer  ought 
not  to  trench  unnecessarily  on  the  domain  of  a  historian.  With 
the  details  of  the  history  of  course  he  must  have  made  himself 
familiar,  but  it  is  not  necessarily  part  of  his  duty  to  lay  them  in  full 
before  the  world.  Many  of  them  are  known  already  ;  more  may 
be  known  by  referring  to  already  published  documents.  When 
a  man  has  risen  to  the  proud  position  of  Viceroy  of  India,  his  his- 
tory, to  a  great  extent,  merges  in  the  general  history  of  his  country, 
and  it  does  not  follow,  as  Sir  John  Kaye  has  remarked,  that  because 
in  many  biographies,  more  space  is  given  to  the  few  years  in  which 
a  great  man  is  universally  acknowledged  to  be  great,  than  to  the 
many  years  in  which  he  has  been  training  himself  for  greatness, 
that  therefore  that  practice  is  the  best. 

In  any  case,  whether  I  am  right  or  wrong,  I  have  deliberately 
adopted  the  opposite  course.  It  was  John  Lawrence's  solitary 
and  uphill  work  as  a  subaltern  in  the  Delhi  district ;  it  was  his 
energy  and  enterprise  as  ruler  of  the  newly-annexed  Trans-Sutlej 
states  ;  it  was  the  heart  burnings  and  vexations  which  he  grappled 
with  and  overcame  as  a  Member  of  the  Board  of  the  newly-annexed 
Punjab  ;  it  was  his  multitudinous  toils  as  its  Chief  Commissioner 
while  it  was  becoming  reconciled  to  our  rule,  which,  all  taken  to- 
gether, fitted  him  to  ride  the  whirlwind  and  control  the  storm  when 
at  length  it  broke.  John  Lawrence,  doubtless,  stood  more  promi- 
nently before  the  world  as  Viceroy  of  India  than  when,  as  ruler  of 


340  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864 

one  only  of  its  portions,  he  had  already  sent  his  last«available  regi- 
ment to  Delhi  and  was  calmly  awaiting  the  result.  But  a  greater 
man  he  could  hardly  be.  And  thus  it  happens,  in  his  case,  that 
what  is,  historically,  the  most  interesting,  is  also,  biographically, 
the  most  important.  All  considerations  therefore  seem  alike  to 
point  to  the  desirability  of  passing  somewhat  lightly  over  the  period 
of  the  Viceroyalty,  of  aiming  at  a  sketch  rather  than  a  complete 
history.  And  I  am  confirmed  in  the  conclusion  at  which  I  had 
myself  arrived,  at  an  early  period  of  my  labours,  by  the  advice  of 
those  who,  from  their  knowledge  of  the  time  or  of  the  man,  have 
the  best  right  to  give  it. 

But  it  by  no  means  follows,  because  I  intend  to  pass  somewhat 
lightly  over  his  Viceroyalty,  that  I  therefore  agree  with  those  who 
have  said  that  it  would  have  been  well  for  Sir  John  Lawrence  had 
he  died  in  the  height  of  his  fame  on  his  return  from  the  Mutiny, 
and  not  lived  on  to  undertake  so  heavy  a  burden  at  a  time  when 
his  strength  was  no  longer  what  it  had  been.  Doubtless,  he  would 
have  escaped  the  petty  jealousies,  the  innumerable  vexations,  the 
carping  criticisms,  or  worse,  which  dog  the  footsteps  of  even  the 
most  able  and  popular  of  Viceroys,  and,  from  a  merely  artistic 
point  of  view,  this  biography  would  have  had  a  more  appropriate 
finish,  had  he  died  the  hero  of  the  Mutiny  with  his  name  and  his 
services  in  everybody's  mouth.  But  the  chequer  work  of  human 
life  does  not  always  adapt  itself  to  the  severe  requirements  of  art, 
and  it  is  well  that  it  should  not  do  so.  It  is  well  that  a  great  man 
who  has  reached  the  height  of  fame  should  occasionally  live  through 
it,  should  reach  the  other  side,  should  see  what  is  or  is  not  con- 
tained in  it,  and  be  able  to  show  that  he  is  entirely  independent  of 
it.  It  is  in  the  case  of  characters  who  come  below  the  rank  of  the 
highest  that  one  wishes,  for  their  own  happiness,  that  they  had  died 
in  the  zenith  of  their  fame.  It  would  have  been  well  for  Marius, 
for  instance,  great  General  that  he  was,  had  he  died  immediately 
after  the  battle  of  Aquae  Sextias,  the  recognised  deliverer  of  his 
country  from  the  barbarians.  It  would  have  been  well  for  the 
foremost  military  genius  of  modern  times  had  his  own  sun  set  with 
the  setting  of  the  famous  '  sun  of  Austerlitz.' 

But  with  characters  of  a  nobler  type  still,  men  whose  aims  have 
in  them  little  or  .nothing  that  is  personal,  the  case  is  different. 
We  do  not  instinctively  wish  that  such  men  should  die  at  the  mo- 
ment when  what  would  have  been  to  lesser  men  their  highest  aims, 
have  been  most  amply  satisfied.  Had  Hannibal  died  at  the  pin- 
nacle of  his  unbroken  success  after  the  battle  of  Cannce,  he  would. 


i864         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY   OF   INDIA.  341 

undoubtedly,  kave  been  a  happier,  but  we  should  hardly  have  felt 
him  to  be  so  great  a  man  as  we  all  feel  that  he  was,  when,  after  his 
long  uphill  struggle,  defeated  but  not  disheartened,  cast  down  but 
not  destroyed,  he  went  forth  as  a  wandering  exile,  still  true  to  his 
early  vow,  still  cherishing  his  immortal  hatred  to  Rome.  Scipio, 
had  he  died  at  Zama,  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  had  he  died  at  Wat- 
erloo, would  each  of  them  have  died  at  the  height  of  his  prosperity 
and  fame,  and  so  would  have  avoided  the  mistakes  which  men 
bred  in  the  camp  are  likely  to  make  when  they  try  their  hands  at 
statesmanship.  But  few  wish  that,  with  their  real  nobility  of  char- 
acter, they  had  so  died. 

And  so,  too,  with  John  Lawrence.  Had  the  disease  which 
threatened  him  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Mutiny  carried  him  off 
at  its  close,  no  one  would  have  said  that  his  death  was  not  as  happy 
and  as  glorious  as  any  death  could  well  be.  But  how  much  would 
have  been  left  undone,  how  many  tints  and  touches  in  his  character 
would  have  been  only  half  filled  in.  He  would  not  have  risen  to 
the  splendid  post  for  which  his  services  pre-eminently  marked  him 
out.  He  would  not  have  ruled  the  Empire  which  he  had  done  so 
much  to  save.  He  would  not  have  had  the  chance  of  showing  the 
stuff  of  which  he  was  made,  by  coming  down  at  once  from  his 
magnificent  Viceroyalty  to  the  dull  drudgery  of  the  School  Board. 
Finally,  he  would  not  have  been  able,  at  the  cost  of  the  popularity 
of  the  hour  and  of  the  favour  of  the  great,  but  in  the  fulness  of  his 
years,  his  experience  and  his  authority,  to  lift  up  his  voice  against 
a  policy  which  he  believed  to  be  unwise,  unnecessary,  and  unjust, 
and  to  utter  those  warnings  as  to  the  course  and  the  results  of  an- 
other Afghan  war,  every  one  of  which  a  bitter  experience  has 
proved  to  be  too  true.  His  biography,  I  repeat  it  once  more,  would 
not  have  laboured  under  the  artistic  disadvantage  of  descending 
from  the  more  to  the  less  interesting,  but  the  picture  would  have 
been  less  complete  of  the  man  of  whom  it  has  been  truly  said^  that — 

he  cared  not  to  be  great, 
But  as  he  saved  or  served  the  State. 

The  appointment  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  received  with  a 
chorus  of  approbation  by  all  parties  in  the  State  and  by  newspapers 
of  every  shade  of  opinion  in  England.  The  Times,  which,  on  such 
a  matter,  we  may  safely  take  as  the  gauge  of  the  universal  feeling, 
said — 

'  By  Captain  L.  J.  Trotter  in  his  excellent  Sketch  of  the  Public  Career  of 
Lord  Lawrence. 


342  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

It  has  been  happily  determined  to  break  tj^ough  the  charmed  circle 
which  has  so  long  restricted  the  office  of  Governor-General  to  the  Peer- 
age, and  to  send  out  to  the  Empire  which  was  formed  by  the  exertions 
of  Robert  Clive  and  Warren  Hastings,  not  only  a  commoner,  but  a  com- 
moner wholly  unconnected  with  any  family  of  the  English  aristocracy. 
The  person,  however,  on  whom  the  choice  of  the  Government  has  rested 
is  a  man  stamped  by  the  hand  of  Nature  with  the  truest  impress  of  nobil- 
ity, and  though  not  born  to  inherit  aristocratic  titles,  is  peculiarly  calcu- 
lated to  create  them.  Everyone  will  recognise  from  this  description  that 
the  new  Governor-General  of  India  is  Sir  John  Lawrence. 

Letters  crowded  in  upon  him  from  men  of  all  parties,  all  taking 
the  same  view,  that  his  appointment  was  no  triumph  of  one  party 
over  another — for  Sir  John  Lawrence  never  was  a  party  man — but 
of  merit  over  all  party.  Lord  Shaftesbury,  who,  it  is  well  known, 
has  always  held  himself  aloof  from  all  mere  party  movements,  and 
has  found  higher  and  nobler  work  by  doing  so,  wrote  to  the  new 
Governor-General  thus  : — '  At  last  Government  has  recognised  your 
merits,  and  you  are  about,  God  be  praised,  to  enter  upon  the  grand 
career  for  which  you  are  so  eminently  fitted.'  One  who  would  have 
felt  no  special  sympathy  with  the  religious  views  either  of  Lord 
Shaftesbury  or  Sir  John  Lawrence,  the  late  Bishop  Wilberforce,  was 
equally  delighted  : — '  Unfeignedly,'  he  writes,  '  do  I  rejoice  in  the 
great  act  of  policy  and  justice  which  has  placed  in  your  hands  the 
destinies  of  India.  May  God  enable  you  to  do  as  He  has  enabled 
you  to  do  before.' 

'  I  have  heard  with  delight  of  your  acceptance,'  said  the  Duke  of 
Argyll  ;  '  I  was  half  afraid  you  might  have  thought  *'  wife  and 
bairns  "  against  it.  But  you  are  so  marked  out  for  the  place  that 
your  refusal  would  have  been  a  public  misfortune.  I  am  sure  the 
Queen  will  feel  your  acceptance  a  great  blessing  and  relief.  Going 
back  to  India  a  second  time  after  such  a  term  of  service,  must  al- 
ways involve  a  certain  risk.  But  you  will  feel  that  it  is  the  place  in 
which  you  can  do  most  good.  You  must  not  overwork  by  never  giving 
yourself  "  fair  play  "  in  the  way  of  hills  and  holidays.  In  ordinary 
times — especially  in  these  days  of  railway  and  telegraph — it  cannot 
be  necessary  to  stick  too  much  to  Calcutta.  I  trust  we  may  see  you 
before  you  go,  though  that  must  be  soon.     May  God  be  with  you.' 

*  I  rejoice  for  India,'  said  Sir  John  Lawrence's  intimate  and 
trusted  friend,  the  Duchess  of  Argyll,  '  and  for  you  too  ;  for  you 
will  be  in  a  place  where  you  will  be  able  to  do  much  for  other  men 
and  for  the  glory  of  God.  We  must  trust  to  Him  the  life  that  has 
become  very  dear  to  us.' 


i864        JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  343 

'  Among  the  multitude  of  affairs  and  congratulations,'  wrote  Flor- 
ence Nightingale,  '  which  will  be  pouring  in  upon  you,  there  is  no 
more  fervent  joy,  there  are  no  stronger  good  wishes,  than  those  of 
one  of  the  humblest  of  your  servants.  For  there  is  no  greater  posi- 
tion for  usefulness  under  heaven  than  that  of  governing  the  vast 
empire  you  saved  for  us.  And  you  are  the  only  man  to  fill  it.  So 
thought  a  statesman  with  whom  I  worked  not  daily,  but  hourly,  for 
five  years,  Sidney  Herbert,  when  the  last  appointment  was  made. 
In  the  midst  of  your  pressure  pray  think  of  us  and  of  our  sanitary 
things  on  which  such  millions  of  lives  and  health  depend.' 

The  native  Indian  newspapers  were  as  jubilant  over  the  appoint- 
ment as  were  the  English,  but  the  Anglo-Indian  press  was,  naturally, 
more  divided  in  its  views.  Some  complained  of  the  new  Viceroy  as 
a  commoner,  others  as  a  civilian,  others  as  a  Punjabi,  others  as  a 
proselytiser  and  a  Puritan,  others  again  as  a  Dalhousie-ite,  who 
would  be  likely  to  reverse  Lord  Canning's  policy  and  return  to  the 
'  era  of  annexations.'  But,  generally  speaking,  all  ended  up  by  a 
frank  acknowledgment  of  his  eminent  qualifications  for  the  post, 
his  honesty,  his  energy,  and  his  courage  ;  his  long  Indian  expe- 
rience ;  his  successful  administration  of  the  Punjab  ;  his  unique 
services  in  the  Mutiny  ;  his  knowledge  of  the  country,  of  the  peo- 
ple, of  the  languages,  of  the  requirements  of  India  generally,  and  of 
the  policy  which,  at  that  particular  juncture,  ought  to  be  pursued. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  took  out  with  him  to  India  as  his  Private 
Secretary  Dr.  Hathaway,  a  man  of  great  vigour  and  energy,  who 
had  done  much  for  jails  and  for  the  Lawrence  Asylum  in  the  Pun- 
jabi days,  had  been  an  early  friend  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  and  was 
believed,  by  his  medical  skill,  to  have  more  than  once  saved  the  life 
of  Sir  John  Lawrence  when  it  was  in  imminent  danger.  To  those 
who  objected  that  these  services,  great  as  they  were,  did  not  neces- 
sarily qualify  him  for  the  extremely  delicate  and  difficult  post  of 
Private  Secretary,  his  chief  always  answered  in  the  same  compre- 
hensive words,  'he  will  work,'  or,  as  was  often  his  way  when  con- 
sidering a  question,  he  appealed  to  the  judgment  of  his  '  brother 
Henry,'  who  had  once  remarked  that  '  if  he  ever  rose  to  be  Viceroy 
he  would  make  Hathaway  his  Private  Secretary.' 

One  incident,  and  one  only  of  Sir  John's  outward  bound  journey 
I  will  record.  He  was  in  bad  spirits,  partly  from  sea-sickness,  partly 
from  the  lack  of  friends  and  congenial  natures  around  him,  partly 
from  the  feeling  of  the  heavy  responsibilities  which  he  had  assumed 
in  comparatively  weak  health.  A  lady  was  returning  to  India  with 
her  infant  child,  which  she  utterly  neglected,  and  the  baby  took  its 


344  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864 

revenge  upon  the  passengers  generally  by^sqiialling  day  and  night 
alike.  They  complained  in  no  measured  language  to  the  authorities. 
'  Steward,  throw  that  baby  overboard  ! '  was  a  cry  which  came  from 
many  a  tempest-tossed  and  sleepless  berth.  But  the  nuisance  con- 
tinued unabated.  At  last  the  new  Viceroy,  perhaps  because  he  saw 
in  the  child,  half  unconsciously,  a  slight  resemblance  to  his  lost 
Bertie,  gave  it  a  large  share  of  his  attention,  and  would  take  it  for 
hours  together  on  his  knee,  showing  it  his  watch  and  any  tiling  that 
would  amuse  it.  The  child  took  to  him,  as  he  to  it,  and,  to  the 
great  relief  of  the  passengers,  was  always  quiet  in  his  presence. 
'  Why  do  you  take  such  notice  of  that  child  ? '  asked  one  of  them. 
'  Why,  to  tell  you  the  truth,'  said  the  Viceroy,  'that  child  is  the  only 
being  in  the  ship  who  I  can  feel  quite  sure  does  not  want  to  get 
anything  out  of  me,  and  so  I  take  pleasure  in  his  society  !  ' 

Sir  John  Lawrence  landed  in  Calcutta  on  January  12,  1864,  and 
received  a  warm  greeting  from  vast  crowds  of  Europeans  and  of 
natives.  The  cheers  of  the  sailors  in  the  shipping  as  he  steamed  up 
the  Hoogly,  the  unauthorised  cheers  of  the  soldiers  on  parade  when 
his  arrival  was  announced  to  them  in  a  General  Order,  showed 
clearly  enough  what  they  thought  of  their  new  ruler.  Asiatics  are 
not  demonstrative.  But  the  first  sight  of  the  man  of  whom  they 
had  heard  so  much,  and,  but  for  whom,  many  of  them  believed  that 
the  Mutiny  might  have  been  successful,  stirred  something  almost 
akin  to  emotion  in  the  Bengali  heart,  and  showed  itself  even  in  their 
outward  bearing.  The  new  Viceroy  was  received  in  the  usual  man- 
ner at  Government  House  by  Sir  William  Denison,  the  Governor  of 
Madras,  who  had  been  summoned  to  Calcutta  to  bridge  over  the 
interregnum,  and  who,  though  he  had  only  recently  been  sent  to 
India  from  a  remote  dependency,  had  won  considerable  credit  by 
the  presence  of  mind  which  he  had  shown  during  the  anxieties  of 
the  Umbeylah  campaign. 

The  disadvantages  under  which  a  Viceroy  labours  who  has  risen 
from  the  ranks  of  the  Civil  Service,  are  obvious  enough,  and  I  shall 
often  have  occasion  to  refer  to  them.  Even  if  he  is  supported  loy- 
ally— as  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  and  always  acknowledged  that  he 
had  been,  by  the  great  bulk  of  the  Civil  Service — it  is  likely  that 
he  will  be  regarded  with  envy  or  with  jealousy  by  some  few  of  the 
older  and  more  important  members  of  the  service,  whom  he  has  so 
hopelessly  distanced.  They  are  able  to  thwart  him  in  ways  which 
it  is  easy  to  understand,  but  which  it  is  not  so  easy  for  him  to  take 
notice  of,  to  check,  or  to  repress.  He  brings  to  his  great  task  a 
mind  which  has  necessarily  been  made  up  on  many  of  the  more 


i864  JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  345 

important  questions  whigh  will  come  before  him.  He  is  imbued  in 
some  measure,  or,  what  comes  to  the  same  thing,  he  is  regarded  by- 
others  as  imbued,  with  the  ideas,  the  partialities,  the  specialties  of 
the  particular  province  or  particular  office  in  which  he  has  gained 
his  experience  and  won  his  reputation.  And  this  feeUng  would  be 
greatly  intensified  in  the  case  of  a  civilian  from  the  Punjab,  and, 
above  all,  in  the  case  of  such  a  civilian  as  Sir  John  Lawrence.  For 
the  Punjab,  with  all  its  irregularities  of  procedure,  had,  somehow, 
come  to  be  regarded  as  the  model  Province,  and  Sir  John  Lawrence 
was  the  man  who  with  his  strong  will,  his  blunt  straightforwardness, 
his  carelessness  of  popularity,  his  determination  to  work  at  the 
highest  pressure  himself  and  to  get  a  similar  amount  of  work  out 
of  others,  had  done  more  than  any  other  man,  or  set  of  men,  to 
gain  for  it  its  enviable  and  envied  reputation.  These  feelings  of 
jealousy  and  mislike  would  inevitably  come  to  the  front  at  no  dis- 
tant period.  But,  for  the  present,  they  were  shamed  into  silence  by 
the  sense  of  the  overwhelming  advantages  which  his  knowledge  of 
the  people,  of  the  country,  and  of  the  whole  situation  gave  him. 
He  knew  his  work  before  he  came  to  it.  He  was  not  therefore 
obliged,  like  most  Governors-General,  who  have  not  enjoyed  similar 
advantages,  to  go  to  school  during  the  first  year  or  the  first  half  of 
his  term  of  office.  His  foot  was  no  sooner  in  the  stirrup  than  he 
found  himself  firmly  seated  in  the  saddle.  He  was  not  at  the 
mercy  either  of  his  own,  or  his  predecessor's  secretaries  or  advisers. 
Not  a  day  was  lost  in  setting  to  work,  and,  within  two  months  of 
his  arrival,  it  may  be  truly  said  that  there  was  hardly  a  petty  detail 
of  the  vast  machinery  of  his  Government  which  he  had  not  person- 
ally examined.  The  quantity  of  arrears,  partly  owing  to  the  Um- 
beylah  war,  partly  to  the  general  character  of  Lord  Elgin's  rule,  his 
sudden  death,  and  the  prolonged  interregnum,  was  very  great,  but 
they  were  all  cleared  up  under  his  hand  and  eye,  as  if  by  magic. 

Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  the  Finance  Minister,  writing  to  Sir  John 
Lavv^rence  on  February  7,  little  more  than  three  weeks,  that  is,  after 
his  arrival,  said  : — 

It  is  well  that  we  should  have  our  house  in  order  here.  You  have 
given  a  tone  of  firmness  and  seriousness  to  our  counsels,  and  allhough 
you  complain  of  the  difficulty  of  getting  anything  decided,  to  me  the 
change  is  so  great  that  I  can  again  look  forward  with  heart  and  hope. 
I  rejoice  that  you  have  the  power  as  well  as  the  will  to  do  what  the 
public  service  requires. 

It  had  been  arranged  that  the  Viceroy  should  pass  on  at  once  to 


346  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

Lahore,  where  his  mere  presence  would  do  much  to  quiet  the 
frontier.  But  as  the  Umbeylah  war  was  over,  he  was  free  to  stay 
at  Calcutta  and  to  clear  up  arrears.  The  simple  fact  that  Sir  John 
Lawrence  was  in  India  was  enough  to  remind  the  turbulent  that 
their  time  was  not  yet.  The  ferment  of  disaffection  which,  un- 
doubtedly, was  there  at  work  beneath  the  surface  of  Mohammedan 
society  in  various  parts  of  India,  never  rose  to  the  surface,  but  sunk 
deeper  down  or  disappeared,  and  the  Wah-habi  missionaries  of 
Patna  and  other  cities  reserved  their  spirit-stirring  harangues  or 
their  farsighted  intrigues  for  a  more  promising  opportunity. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  was  no  longer  what  he  had  been  in  physical 
strength.  But  the  energy  of  the  man,  his  determination  to  do  for 
himself  what  others  would  have  done  only  by  deputy,  or  perhaps 
not  have  done  at  all ;  to  see  with  his  own  eyes,  to  hear  with  his  own 
ears  whatever  was  to  be  heard  or  seen  ;  showed  itself  in  forms 
which  amused  or  startled  the  officials  of  Calcutta  and  of  Govern- 
ment House.  Did  a  fire  break  out  by  night  in  the  native  quarter 
of  the  city,  one  of  those  fires,  which,  at  that  time,  recurred  with 
such  lamentable  frequency,  and  which,  if  they  were  not  left  alone 
by  the  authorities  to  burn  themselves  out,  were  seldom  extinguished 
by  their  exertions,  till  perhaps  a  hundred  or  more  native  huts  had 
been  reduced  to  ashes  and  the  inmates  had  lost  their  little  all  ?  Sir 
John  Lawrence  would  make  his  way  on  foot  to  the  spot  while  the  fire 
was  still  burning,  that  he  might  judge  for  himself  as  to  the  extent 
of  the  disaster  and  the  means  by  which  similar  disasters  might  be 
best  guarded  against  for  the  future.  In  Calcutta  few  Europeans 
allow  themselves  to  walk  on  foot.  But  in  the  fortnight  which 
passed  before  the  purchase  of  Lord  Elgin's  stud,  the  new  Viceroy 
astoni:hed  the  inhabitants  by  showing  himself  on  foot  at  times  and 
places  where  he  would  be  least  expected.  *  He  walked,'  says  his 
Private  Secretary,  '  to  the  Eden  gardens  in  the  gloom  of  those 
January  evenings,  and,  like  the  Sultan  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  heard 
with  amusement  or  with  interest  remarks  about  himself  as  he  mingled 
with  the  crowd.  He  walked  to  the  Scotch  Church  or  St.  John's 
on  the  Sunday  morning,  throwing  down  his  great  white  umbrella  in 
the  porch,  and  striding  in,  to  the  dismay  of  the  officials,  who  were 
expecting  him  to  arrive  in  full  Vice-regal  state  at  the  grand  en- 
trance. He  walked  across  the  Maidan  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, and,  on  one  occasion,  when  confronted  with  a  bison  or  buffalo 
which  had  escaped  from  the  Agricultural  Exhibition  then  being 
held  at  Calcutta,  he  amused  his  Staff  by  telling  them  ''not  to  run," 
although  his  own  pace  was  being  rapidly  accelerated,  and  escape  from 


i864  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY   OF    INDIA.  347 

the  huge  animal,  as  he  bore  down  upon  them,  seemed  somewhat 
problematical.  He  walked  to  the  Bazaar  when  notice  of  a  fire 
reached  him,  and  he  spent  much  time  during  this,  his  first  fortnight 
in  the  City  of  Palaces,  in  examining  the  different  sites  suggested 
for  a  Sailors'  Home,  the  first  public  work  he  took  up,  and  one  to 
which  he  devoted  himself  very  assiduously,  laying  the  foundation 
stone  with  his  own  hand,  and  heading  the  subscription  list  with  a 
large  donation.  It  was  on  his  return  from  one  of  these  pedestrian 
excursions,  late  in  the  evening,  that  he  met  with  a  personal  repulse 
which  was  duly  published  in  the  newspapers  on  the  following  morn- 
ing, and  afforded  much  amusement  to  the  Calcutta  community. 
The  south  entrance  to  the  Vice-regal  Palace  is  considered  sacred 
to  the  Governor- General,  and  ingress  after  dark  is  only  allowed  to 
those  to  whom  he  gives  special  permission.  Just  as  Sir  John  had 
passed  through  this  portal  he  was  challenged  by  the  sentry  with  a 
smart  "  Hoo  cum  dar?  "  ("Who  comes  there  ?  ")  Not  stopping  to 
reply,  Sir  John  pushed  on,  when  his  further  progress  was  effectually 
barred  by  the  Sepoy,  who  brought  his  weapon  with  fixed  bayonet 
down  to  the  charge.  The  members  of  the  Staff,  who  were  convulsed 
with  laughter,  in  vain  assured  the  sentry  that  it  was  the  Governor- 
General.  He  had  never  heard  of,  much  less  seen,  the  "  great  Pa- 
dishah," or  "  Lord  Sahib  Bahadur,"  walking  on  his  own  feet  ;  and 
when  told  that  this  was  "Jan  Larens  "  of  the  Punjab,  he  collapsed 
with  fear,  and  was  only  too  glad  to  see  him  pass  on,  unruffled,  into 
the  house.' 

Another  incident  of  this  time  is  still  more  characteristic.  One 
Sunday  morning  on  descending  the  great  flight  of  marble  steps  at 
Government  House  when  the  sun  was  blazing  with  even  more  than 
its  usual  fury,  Sir  John  Lawrence  found  eight  mounted  troopers  of 
his  body-guard  drawn  up  behind  his  carriage  ready  to  escort  him 
to  the  cathedral.  Not  caring  about  ceremony,  and  anxious  to  save 
the  men  from  unnecessary  suffering,  he  peremptorily  ordered  the 
number  to  be  reduced  to  two,  and  cut  short  the  remonstrances  of 
the  officer  of  his  Staff  who  had  brought  them  thither,  and  who  de- 
fended the  step  on  the  score  of  precedent,  by  saying  with  the 
twinkle  of  his  eyes,  which  generally  succeeded  any  expression  of 
anger,  '  If  I  can't  go  to  church  with  ^7cio  troopers  as  my  escort,  I 
am  not  fit  to  be  Governor-General  of  India.* 

To  a  man  who  had  lived  the  life  of  John  Lawrence,  and  who  was 
disposed  to  make  friends  only  or  chiefly  of  those  whose  whole  souls 
were  in  the  public  service,  there  would  be  much  in  the  etiquette 
and  splendour  of  the  Vice-regal  Court  which  could  not  be  otherwise 


348  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

than  distasteful.  A  man  who  had  been  accustomed  to  do  ahnost 
everything  for  himself  and  by  himself  would  not  naturally  relish 
the  importunate  attentions  of  secretaries,  and  aides-de-camp,  and 
body-guards,  or  find  much  pleasure  in  the  dreary  round,  the  splendid 
misery  of  concerts,  balls  and  entertainments,  which  are  supposed 
to  be  as  the  breath  of  life  to  Royalty  and  its  representatives.  Still, 
such  things  were  part  of  his  duty,  and  he  was  not  the  man  to  shrink 
from  them.  His  great  Durbars  at  Lahore  and  Agra  and  Lucknow 
were  equal  in  their  magnificence,  and,  probably,  surpassed  in  their 
historic  interest  and  their  associations,  any  spectacles  of  the  kind 
which  had  been  seen  in  India. 

But  there  were  abuses  connected  with  the  Vice-regal  Household 
the  toleration  of  which  he  thought  formed  no  part  of  the  Viceroy's 
duty.  Always  liberal  with  his  purse,  as  the  sums  bestowed  upon 
the  Lawrence  Asylum  and  the  Lawrence  Fund  in  the  years  of  his 
poverty  sufficiently  show,  he  hated  ostentation,  extravagance,  and 
Avaste.  In  his  earlier  days,  he  had  had  much  to  do  with  the  pension- 
ing off  of  the  cooks,  the  barbers,  the  fiddlers,  and  the  dancing  girls 
who  had  infested  the  Court  of  the  degenerate  successors  of  Runjeet 
Sing.  The  sin  of  such  wantonness  of  waste  had  been  burned  in 
upon  his  soul.  He  had  chafed  for  many  a  year  at  the  check  which 
had  been  given  to  material  improvements  in  the  Punjab,  by  so  many 
alienations  of  the  public  revenue,  and  he  was  determined,  while  he 
maintained  all  the  dignity  and  splendour  suitable  to  her  Majesty's 
representative,  not  to  tolerate,  so  far  as  he  could  prevent  it,  any 
wanton  domestic  extravagance.  Among  the  servants  at  Govern- 
ment House  there  were  some  who  were  past  their  work,  some  who 
had  sinecures,  some  who  had  gone  off  on  private  reasons  of  their 
own  and  put  in  substitutes  ;  others  who  had  been  servants  to  mem- 
bers of  the  Staff  of  previous  Viceroys,  and  who,  when  their  masters 
Avent  off  to  England  or  had  no  further  need  of  their  services,  had 
been  transferred  by  them  to  the  Government  House  list  as  the 
easiest  way  of  disposing  of  them.  There  was  a  native  *  Treasurer  ' 
and  a  Deputy-Treasurer  on  high  salaries,  who  did  hardly  the  work 
of  one  man  between  them.  There  was  a  Parisian  cook  on  a  salary 
of  200/.  a  year.  And  as  might  be  expected  in  such  a  state  of 
things,  there  were  perquisites  and  peculations  and  plunderings  on  a 
gigantic  scale.  Here  was  an  Augaean  stable  to  be  cleansed.  But 
where  was  the  Hercules  who  would  have  the  moral  courage  to  lay 
his  sacrilegious  hand  upon  it  ? 

Sir  John  Lawrence  was  well  aware  that  if  he  attacked  any  one  of 
the  abuses  which  were  rife  around  him,  an  outcry  would  be  raised 


i864  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY    OF   INDIA.  349 

by  all  those  who  had  any  vested  interest,  actual  or  prosiDective,  in 
their  perpetuation  ;  that  it  would  be  taken  up  by  a  portion  of  the 
Calcutta  merchants  and  of  the  Calcutta  press  ;  that  it  would  be 
echoed  by  the  Mofussil  papers,  edited,  some  of  them,  by  men  across 
whose  path  he  had  been  obliged  to  come  in  a  disagreeable  manner 
in  other  days,  and  that  India  would  probably  see  the  last  of  him, 
before  he  had  heard  the  last  of  its  reverberating  echoes.  When 
Dean  Stanley  was  '  interviewed  '  in  America,  shortly  before  his  de- 
parture from  the  country,  by  the  inevitable  newspaper  editor,  and 
was  asked,  somewhat  triumphantly,  what  he  thought  now  of  Ameiican 
institutions,  he  asked  his  interrogator  in  turn — so  he  told  me  him- 
self— whether  he  wished  to  hear  the  truth  or  not  ?  .'  Of  course,' 
said  the  editor,  '  I  wish  you  to  tell  me  what  you  really  think.'  *  Well,' 
replied  the  Dean,  '  your  very  best  institutions — those  to  which  we 
have  no  parallel  at  all  in  England — are  your  public  libraries,  your 
very  worst  are  your  newspapers.'  He  might  have  said  much  the 
same  of  a  considerable  part  of  the  Anglo-Indian  press  of  Sir  John 
Lawrence's  time  to  any  Anglo-Indian  editor  who  had  put  a  similar 
question  to  him.  There  were  many  brilliant  exceptions,  such  as 
the  '  Friend  of  India,'  the  '  Pioneer,'  the  '  Lahore  Chronicle,'  the 
'  Bombay  Gazette  '  and  '  Times,'  and  possibly  a  dozen  other  news- 
papers, but  the  residuum  was  full  of  gross  and  vulgar  personalities, 
garnished  with  the  coarsest  wit,  utterly  useless  for  all  purposes  of 
instruction,  of  refinement,  of  history.  The  whole  of  this  portion  of 
the  Indian  press.  Sir  John  Lawrence  knew  that  he  would  have 
against  him.  Every  detail  of  his  private  life  would  be  misrepre- 
sented and  then  held  up  to  public  scorn.  Every  malicious  slander, 
every  poisonous  insinuation  v/hich  his  enemies  could  conjure  up 
would  be  laid  on  his  breakfast  table,  morning  after  morning,  to  be 
digested  by  him  and  by  his  Staff  as  best  they  could.  It  has  been 
my  business  to  wade  through  many  of  these  monotonous  piles  of 
stupid  slander,  these  ruthless  invasions  of  the  sanctities  of  domestic 
life.  Such  newspapers  were,  happily,  all  unknown  in  England  then. 
But  times  have  changed,  and  some  of  their  worst  characteristics, 
served  up,  with  less  grossness  perhaps,  but  with  much  more  power 
for  mischief,  form  the  miserable  staple  of  a  whole  class  of  journals 
at  the  present  day.  They  are  among  the  least  promising  of  its 
symptoms. 

From  the  risk  of  stirring  up  such  a  nest  of  hornets,  as  I  have 
described,  about  Ms  ears,  even  Sir  John  Lawrence  might  well  have 
shrunk.  For,  careless  of  popularity  as  he  was,  he  was  yet,  it  should 
be  remembered,  at  all  periods  of  his  life,  keenly  sensitive  to  the 


350  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

criticisms  of  the  press.  He  knew  what  power  even  a  degraded 
press  might  have,  and  he  would  not  have  been  sorry,  if  it  could 
have  been  done  with  honour,  to  have  found  it  on  his  side.  But 
this  could  not  be.  And  the  order  went  forth  to  attempt  the  reform 
of  at  least  some  of  the  worst  abuses  in  Government  House.  His 
agent  in  the  matter  was  his  Private  Secretary  Dr.  Hathaway,  to 
whom,  besides  the  duties  of  his  office,  was  entrusted  the  control  of 
the  '  Durbar,'  as  well  as  of  the  private  purse.  The  *  Durbar '  fund 
is  a  supplementary  allowance  of  3,000  rupees  a  month,  and  from  it 
are  paid  the  wages  of  the  servants  and  other  charges  not  strictly 
personal.  This  fund  when  it  was  handed  over  to  the  Private  Secre- 
tary was  found  to  have  been  much  overdrawn  by  his  predecessors 
under  Lord  Elgin.  Retrenchment  in  this  particular  was  therefore 
absolutely  necessary,  and  from  that  moment  the  attacks  made  on 
the  Viceroy  and  his  secretary,  by  a  certain  portion  of  the  press, 
were  persistent  and  malignant.  It  is  easy,  of  course,  by  a  few  turns 
of  expression,  to  represent  all  economy  as  meanness,  everything 
which  is  not  indiscriminate  profusion  as  sordid  love  of  gain,  and 
this  was  the  line  of  attack  taken  on  almost  all  occasions.  It  was 
Sir  John  Lawrence's  order  that  everything  supplied  at  his  table  to 
his  guests  should  be  of  the  very  best.  But  the  cue  passed  round 
among  too  many  of  those  who  shared  his  hospitality  and  who  would 
have  been  loudest  in  their  complaints  had  they  been  left  out,  was 
to  discover  parsimony  in  everything.  They  went  away,  for  instance, 
complaining  that  '  they  could  not  drink  the  wine,  it  was  so  bad  ; 
such  a  contrast  to  what  they  had  had  in  Lord  Elgin's  time  ! '  They 
did  not  know  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  bought  up  thp  wine  in 
Lord  Elgin's  cellars,  and  that  they  were  drinking  the  very  wine, 
which,  in  one  and  the  same  breath,  they  praised  and  execrated.' 
Did  Sir  John  decline,  on  high  principle,  which  whether  we  agree 
with  it  or  not,  we  must  needs  respect  and  admire,  to  give  a  silver 
cup  to  be  run  for  at  the  Calcutta  races  ?  It  was  put  down^  not  to 
the  earnest  endeavour  which  he  had  always  made,  to  discourage 
extravagance,  and,  above  all,  that  least  satisfactory  form  of  extrava- 
gance and  rascality  combined  which  finds  its  proper  home  upon  the 
turf,  among  men  to  whom  it  was  so  important  to  be  careful  as  In- 
dian officials,  but  to  the  desire  to  save  a  few  pounds.     The  exclu- 

^  The  same  story,  7iiutatis  mutandis,  is  told  of  the  same  class  of  people  after 
the  arrival  of  Lord  Mayo.  '  The  wine  he  gave  was  such  an  agreeable  contrast 
to  that  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  given  them.'  But,  unfortunately  once 
again  it  was  the  very  same,  for  Lord  Mayo  had  in  his  turn  bought  up  Sir  John 
Lawrence's  surplus  stock. 


i864         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY   OF   INDIA.  35 1 

sion  of  natives  from  certain  entertainments  at  Government  House, 
an  exclusion  which  is  perfectly  intelligible  to  those  who  know  how 
different  are  the  ideas  of  Orientals  and  of  Europeans  on  the  subject 
of  dancing,  was  put  down  to  the  same  unpardonable  weakness,  or 
to  a  sudden  desire  studiously  to  insult  those  to  whose  interests  his 
whole  life  had  been  devoted.  Human  nature  being  what  it  is,  I  am 
not  prepared  to  say  that  all  the  steps  taken  in  the  direction  of  the 
curtailment  of  expenditure  were  politic,  or  savoured  of  worldly 
wisdom.  But  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  ignorant  of  the  man, 
and  of  the  f^ts  of  the  case,  and  only  for  those,  I  think  it  well  to 
point  out  that  the  little  that  may  have  been  saved  by  the  withdrawal 
of  the  Viceroy's  patronage  from  theatres  or  the  turf,  or  from  mere 
extravagances  of  eating  and  drinking,  was  doubled  or  trebled  in  the 
subscriptions  which  he  gave  to  the  sailor's  home,  to  penitentiaries, 
to  asylums,  to  charities  of  every  description,  not  to  speak  of  more 
strictly  religious  objects.  He  was  indeed  sometimes  attacked  with 
strange  inconsistency  by  the  very  same  people  for  his  economy  and 
for  the  amount  of  his  charities  ;  and  it  may  be  interesting  to  add 
that  memoranda  before  me,  the  authority  of  which  is  incontestable, 
show  that  his  contributions  from  his  private  purse  to  religious  ob- 
jects alone  amounted  in  the  year  1864  to  900/.,  and  in  1S65  ^o 
1,053/.  With  an  honourable  disregard  of  what  had  been  done,  or 
neglected  to  be  done  by  his  predecessors,  he  instituted  family  prayers 
in  Government  House,  for  the  first  time,  I  believe,  in  its  history,  and 
gave  orders  that  the  servants  and  others '  connected  with  it  should, 
as  far  as  possible,  be  released  from  labour  on  Sundays.  On  these 
and  other  grounds  the  newspapers  before  me  reproach  him  with 
his  '  Puritanism.'  But  the  name  of  Puritan  is  one  which,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Cunctator  of  old,  will,  in  the  only  sense  in  which  it  could 
be  truly  applied  to  him,  always  remain  one  of  his  highest  titles  to 
honour. 

One  anecdote  I  may  add  here  as  illustrating  the  ingenuity  with 
which  some  of  his  most  praiseworthy  acts  were  distorted  by  the 
scandal-loving  portion  of  the  press,  and  I  give  it  almost  in  the 
words  of  the  member  of  the  Staff,  on  whom  most  of  the  odium  for 
the  part  he  bore  in  carrying  out  his  chief's  orders  fell.  The  true 
version  of  the  story  has  never,  I  believe,  been  given  till  now,  for 
Sir  John  Lawrence,  though  he  winced  under  the  attacks  made  upon 
him,  and  the  invasions  of  the  privacy  of  his  domestic  life,  determined 
to  endure  them  all  in  silence,  and  his  orders  '  to  make  no  official 
reply  '  were  rigidly  obeyed.  The  incident  occurred  only  a  few 
months  after  his  arrrival  in  the  country. 


352  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

A  small  brotherhood  of  Moravian  missionaries  had  been  stationed 
for  some  years  past  at  Lahoul,  on  the  borders  of  Thibet  and  about 
100  miles  from  Simla,  where  the  Governor-General  was  then  resid- 
ing. Their  isolated  position,  their  extreme  poverty,  and  their  self- 
denying  labours  amongst  a  semi-barbarous  people  were  known  only 
to  a  few,  and  when  one  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  Staff  told  him  how 
they  were  accustomed  to  work  in  the  fields  as  common  peasants,  to 
manufacture  their  own  paper,  to  make  their  own  clothes,  and  ex- 
pressed a  wish  that  one  of  the  body  might  be  invited  for  a  few  days 
to 'Peterhoff,'  the  Governor-General's  house  at  Simla,  a  cordial 
assent  was  given,  and  an  invitation  was  sent  out  by  special  mes- 
senger. The  missionary  selected  by  the  brethren  walked  the  whole 
distance  on  foot.  His  dress  was  a  coarse  suit  of  brown  camel's 
hair  cloth,  which  had  been  woven  in  the  village,  and  cut  out  and 
sewn  by  the  brotherhood.  He  had  no  shoes  ;  only  sandals  made 
of  hemp  and  coarse  string,  and  his  whole  luggage  consisted  of  a 
portable  coffee  pot  in  one  pocket  and  his  Bible  in  the  other.  Dr. 
Farquhar,  the  surgeon  of  the  Viceroy,  an  eminently  kind-hearted 
man,  supplied  him  on  his  arrival,  as  best  he  could,  with  the  dress 
suit  required  for  dinner,  and  attended  to  all  his  other  wants.  In 
the  course  of  conversation,  Sir  John  elicited  that  the  greatest  hard- 
ship next  after  the  severe  cold  which  the  missionaries  had  to  endure, 
was  the  want  of  medicine,  and  their  inability  to  carry  on  the  work 
of  translating  the  Bible,  during  the  long  six  months  of  winter,  since 
they  had  no  lamps  or  candles.  A  stock  of  quinine  and  other  medi- 
cines was  at  once  obtained  from  the  Government  Dispensary,  and  a 
large  quantity  of  half  burnt  wax  candles,  amounting  to  several 
thousand  pieces,  which  had  been  accumulating  in  the  store  room  of 
Government  House,  was  ordered  by  the  Private  Secretary,*with  Sir 
John  Lawrence's  permission,  to  be  melted  down  in  the  Bazaar,  and 
formed  into  candles  of  a  convenient  size.  These  were  the  self-ap- 
propriated perquisites  of  a  well  paid  native  servant  in  the  establish- 
ment, who,  having  no  missionary  proclivities,  was  indignant  at  the 
use  to  which  the  fragments  were  converted,  and  the  report  soon 
buzzed  about  the  station  that  the  Viceroy  and  a  particular  member 
of  his  Staff  had  hit  upon  a  new  measure  of  domestic  economy. 

But  the  grateful  thanks  of  the  missionary,  as  he  departed  with 
his  precious  burden  strapped  on  a  mule's  back,  and  his  last  beam- 
ing words  of  joy,  '  You  have  given  us  life  and  health,'  have  never 
been  forgotten  by  those  two  who  wished  him  God-speed  as  he 
passed  out  of  their  sight.  The  story  has  never  been  told  till  now, 
but  it  will  doubtless,  through  the  missionary  press,  some  day  reach 


i864  JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  353 

that  little  band  of  devoted  workers  in  their  far-off  solitary  station, 
and  as  they  hold  up  their  translation  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  roughly 
lithographed  on  the  coarse  paper  made  by  their  own  hands,  they 
will  be  reminded  of  an  episode  in  the  life  of  the  man  at  whom  the 
fashionable  world  of  Simla  may  have  thought  fit  to  sneer  as  the 
'  Puritan  '  Governor-General  of  India,  but  whom  they  will  always 
remember  with  love  and  gratitude. 

I  may  add  here  a  touch  or  two  to  the  more  humorous  side  of  the 
story,  which  I  have  gathered  from  other  members  of  the  Viceroy's 
Staff.  'You  should  have  seen,'  said  Dr.  Farquhar,  'the  curious 
figure  made  by  the  missionary  on  his  first  appearance.  We  had  to 
rig  him  up  as  best  we  could,  in  order  to  make  him  presentable  at 
dinner  ;  and  so  Blane  saw  his  tie,  I  my  waistcoat,  the  Viceroy  his 
shoes  upon  him  as  he  came  into  the  room.'  Sir  John  took  him 
under  his  special  protection  and  made  him  sit  on  his  right  hand  in 
the  post  of  honour,  but  even  so,  it  was  all  that  some  of  the  younger 
members  of  the  Staff  could  do  to  maintain  their  gravity.  The 
Viceroy  conversed  much  with  him  about  his  work  and  life.  The 
brotherhood,  it  appeared,  consisted  of  only  three  members.  They 
had  come  out  to  their  distant  station  unmarried,  and  when  they  had 
got  well  into  their  work,  and  wished  to  change  their  condition,  they 
had  sent  home,  as  was  usual  in  such  cases,  to  the  Presbytery,  asking 
that  wives  might  be  found  and  sent  out  to  them.  The  brides  were 
duly  selected  and  despatched,  and  one  of  the  brotherhood  was 
sent  down  to  Calcutta  to  receive  and  bring  them  up  to  their  future 
husbands  and  homes.  But  the  cunning  fellow  stole  a  march  over 
his  brethren.  He  had  first  choice,  and  married  the  bonniest  of  them 
before  they  left  Calcutta.  '  And  what  families  have  you  got  now  ?' 
asked  the  Viceroy,  following  up  the  thread  of  the  story  with  perfect 
gravity.  '  Wan  '  (one),  replied  the  missionary  in  his  broken  Eng- 
lish, '  has  wan,  wan  has  two,  and  wan  wants.'  This  was  too  much 
for  the  self-control,  even  of  the  Viceroy,  and  the  younger  members 
of  the  staff,  R.  Kennedy  in  particular — afterwards  well  known  as 
aide-de-camp  to  Sir  Frederick  Roberts  in  his  famous  march — went 
off  into  a  fair  burst  of  laughter. 

Another  anecdote  illustrative  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  kindliness 
of  heart,  especially  where  young  children  were  concerned,  should 
be  preserved.  Early  in  1864  an  ostrich  domiciled  in  the  Viceregal 
park  at  Barrackpore,  happened  to  deposit  her  first  egg  on  the  grass, 
exposed  to  the  inclement  climate  of  that  time  of  the  year,  and  the 
attacks  of  jackals  and  foxes.  It  was  picked  up  by  the  daughter  of 
the  park-keeper,  a  girl  of  eight  or  nine  years  old.  Her  father  had 
VOL.  n.— 23 


354  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

died  shortly  before.  Proud  of  her  discovery,  she  carried  it  off  to 
the  bungalow,  and  having  learned  something  of  the  habits  of  the 
ostrich  in  its  native  Sahara,  she  got  some  dry  white  sand,  put  it  into 
a  lidless  box,  and  half  burying  the  egg  within  it,  exposed  the  whole, 
in  the  brightest  spot  which  she  could  find,  to  the  mid-day  sun,  and 
when  evening  came  she  would  transfer  it,  box  and  all,  to  the  care 
of  a  hen,  whose  eggs  she  removed  each  day  for  the  purpose. 
Strange  to  say,  the  hen  took  kindly  to  the  task,  and  in  due  time 
the  monster  chick  was  hatched.  The  foster-mother  took  to  flight 
at  the  sight  of  her  offspring.  But  the  girl  supplied  its  place,  and 
the  young  ostrich  used  to  follow  her  about  from  place  to  place, 
share  the  bungalow  with  her,  and  eat  off  her  table.  But  the  fatal 
day  came  when  a  new  park-keeper  was  appointed,  and  almost  his 
first  act  was  to  claim  the  bird  as  Government  property. 

It  was  accordingly  carried  off  to  the  Government  aviary.  The 
little  girl,  broken-hearted  at  the  loss  of  her  pet,  took  to  her  bed  and 
became  seriously  ill.  But  a  kind-hearted  military  surgeon,  who 
happened  to  be  calling  on  the  widowed  mother  to  see  if  he  could 
do  anything  for  her,  heard  the  sad  story.  Through  his  means,  it 
reached  the  ears  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  at  Simla,  who,  by  return  of 
post,  ordered  that  the  bird  should  be  at  once  restored  to  its  rightful 
owner.  There  Avas  a  joyful  meeting  between  the  two  friends  ;  the 
girl  soon  left  her  bed,  and  on  returning  to  England,  a  few  weeks 
later,  with  her  mother,  she  carried  with  her  the  gigantic  pet  which 
had  been  born  and  bred  amidst  such  curious  vicissitudes. 

Of  the  enjoyments  of  domestic  life  during  this  first  year  of  his 
high  office.  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  little  or  nothing.  He  was  with- 
out wife  or  child,  and  there  was  no  one,  therefore,  with  whom  he 
could  halve  the  petty  annoyances  and  the  multitudinous  cares  of 
his  position,  by  the  mere  fact  that  he  was  able  to  tell  them  to  a 
sympathising  ear  and  heart.  In  his  private  life  he  retained,  as  far 
as  possible,  all  his  simple  habits.  His  work  was  done,  as  in  the  old 
Punjab  days — and  it  must  have  been  almost  the  only  thing  in  the 
populous  solitudes  of  Government  House  which  could  remind  him 
of  old  days — in  the  loosest  of  loose  dresses,  his  coat  and  waistcoat 
and  collar  thrown  off,  his  shirt-sleeves  tucked  up,  his  slippers  on  his 
feet.  On  one  occasion,  soon  after  his  arrival,  though  he  was,  in 
other  respects,  duly  attired,  he  omitted,  in  a  moment  of  over-work 
or  ov^er-worry,  to  change  his  slippers  before  receiving  a  Deputation 
of  Calcutta  dignitaries.  It  was  an  omission  which  might  even  have 
pleased  those  who  had  eyes  to  see,  through  his  neglect,  the  true 
character  of  the  man,  but  there  were  some  who  never  forgot  or  for- 


iS64  JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  355 

gave  it.  When  he  heard  that  he  had  given  offence,  he  turned  in 
astonishment  to  hh  Private  Secretary,  and  said,  with  a  simpHcity 
which,  if  it  ever  reached  the  ears  of  the  Deputation,  might  well  have 
disarmed  any  lingering  resentment  on  their  part,  '  Why,  Hathaway, 
they  were  quite  new  and  good  slippers  !  ' 

It  must  be  remembered  (says  Dr.  Hathaway)  that  owing  to  the  two 
months'  interregnum  which  had  occurred,  the  arrears  of  work  had  ac- 
cumulated greatly.  The  red  leather  despatch  boxes  brought  at  all  hours 
of  the  day  from  the  civil,  military,  financial,  and  other  Departments,  used 
sometimes  to  be  piled  up  one  on  the  top  of  the  other  to  the  height  of  sev- 
eral feet  from  the  floor.  But  the  whole  were  cleared  away  before  mid- 
night, and  the  work  was  done  ihoroughly .  No  one  who  saw  Sir  John 
Lawrence  labouring  through  a  mass  of  papers  on  tenant  right  in  Oude, 
or  examining  the  plans  for  barracks  submitted  by  the  Public  Works  De- 
partment, or  the  dry  and  depressing  statistics  tabulated  by  the  Sanitary 
Commission,  would  wonder  at  his  writing  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  or  have  a 
right  to  feel  indignant  that  when  called  away  to  receive  a  Municipal 
Deputation  he  should  forget  to  exchange  his  slippers  for  his  boots,  or  to 
remove  every  mark  of  ink  from  his  fingers.  These  infringements  of 
Viceregal  etiquette  sorely  tried  some  of  his  staff,  but  the  iron  will  of  the 
man  never  yielded.  He  held  his  own  in  spite  of  the  writers  of  a  certain 
portion  of  the  Calcutta  press,  who  only  judged  of  him  from  the  micro- 
scopic view  afforded  to  them  outside  the  walls  of  Government  House, 
and  who  greedily  accepted  every  incident  retailed  to  them  if  they  thought 
that  it  tended  to  lower  the  position  of  the  representative  of  sovereignty. 

One  man  of  a  very  different  stamp  made  the  acquaintance  of  Sir 
John  Lawrence  during  this  period,  and  I  may  be  excused  perhaps, 
if, — in  view  of  the  debt  which,  as  an  old  pupil  of  his  at  Marl- 
borough College,  I  owe  to  his  guidance  and  friendship,  prolonged 
till  his  untimely  death, — I  dwell  for  a  moment  upon  their  meeting. 
With  great  differences  between  them — for  Bishop  Cotton  was  shy, 
quiet,  and  reserved,  blessed  with  a  remarkably  equable  temper, 
and  a  man  of  high  culture  — the  two  men  had  yet  very  much  in 
common  ;  strong  sense,  the  highest  moral  courage,  great  powers  of 
work,  a  rich  vein  of  dry  humour,  absolute  guilelessness,  absolute 
devotion  to  the  good  of  those  for  whom  they  laboured,  a  firm  and 
child-like  faith  in  God.  Such  men  were  sure  to  appreciate  each 
other,  and  it  was  not  long  before  they  met. 

On  reaching  Calcutta  in  March  1864  (says  Bishop  Cotton's  biographer), 
the  bishop  had  the  great  satisfaction  of  meeting  Sir  John  Lawrence, 
whose  recent  installation  in  his  high  office  had  been  hailed  both  by  na- 
tives and  Europeans  as  an  event  full  of  promise  for  India.    The  new  Vice- 


356  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

roy  was  already  vigorously  at  work,  investigating  official  departments 
with  the  practised  eye  of  one  to  whom  all  grades  of  State  duty  were 
familiar.  At  their  first  interview  the  bishop  found  him  buried  in  papers, 
with  necktie  discarded,  and  with  attire  generally  in  accordance  more 
with  comfort  than  conventionality.  '  Excuse  my  dress  ;  it's  very  hot,' 
said  the  Viceroy,  with  the  true  distaste  of  a  denizen  of  the  Punjab  for 
the  hothouse  climate  of  Bengal,  and  then  plunged,  at  once,  into  a  series 
of  inquiries  about  the  Christians  in  Southern  India. 

Bishop  Cotton  was  then  in  the  sixth  year  of  his  episcopate.  He 
had  risen  to  the  level  of  his  high  ofifice,  developing  even  greater 
powers,  and  creating  a  position  for  himself  beyond  even  the  highest 
hopes  of  those  who  had  most  admired  him  at  Rugby  and  at  Marl- 
borough. Had  he  lived  to  serve  out  the  natural  period  of  his  health 
and  strength,  it  would  be  difficult,  judging  from  what  he  had  already 
done,  to  over-estimate  the  services  which  he  might  have  rendered 
to  the  cause  of  Christianity  in  India.  But  this  was  not  to  be.  A 
fatal  slip  from  a  treacherous  plank  into  a  rapidly  rolling  river 
carried  him  away  in  the  mid  career  of  his  powers  and  of  his  useful- 
ness, and  India  has  not  seen  a  Bishop  who  is  like  or  second  to  him 
since.  '  Enoch  walked  with  God,'  says  his  biographer,  '  and  he  was 
not,  for  God  took  him.'  And  the  testimony  borne  to  him  by  Sir 
John  Lawrence  in  an  Order  in  Council  may  conclude  a  digression 
which  had  been   prompted  by  gratitude  and  love  for  a  man  of  so 

rare  a  mould. 

Simla  :  October  10,  1866. 
The  Right  Honourable  the  Governor-General  in  Council  has  learned, 
with  the  deepest  sorrow,  the  death,  through  a  calamitous  accident,  of 
the  Right  Reverend  George  Edward  Lynch  Cotton,  Lord  Bishop  of 
Calcutta.  There  is  scarcely  a  member  of  the  entire  Christian  commu- 
nity throughout  India  who  will  not  feel  the  premature  loss  of  this  prelate 
as  a  personal  affliction.  It  has  rarely  been  given  to  any  body  of  Chris- 
tians in  any  country  to  witness  such  depth  of  learning  and  variety  of 
accomplishments,  combined  with  piety  so  earnest  and  energy  so  untiring. 
His  Excellency  in  Council  does  not  hesitate  to  add  the  expression  of  his 
belief  that  large  numbers,  even  among  those  of  Her  Majesty's  subjects 
in  India  who  did  not  share  in  the  faith  of  the  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  but  had 
learned  to  appreciate  his  great  knowledge,  his  sincerity  and  his  charity, 
will  join  in  lamenting  his  death. 

But  it  is  time  to  enter  on  the  more  public  part  of  Sir  John 
Lawrence's  career  as  Viceroy,  and  it  may  be  well  to  give  first  a  brief 
account  of  the  machinery  of  the  Indian  Government,  and  of  the 
more  important  personages  by  whom,  on  his  arrival,  he  found  him- 
self surrounded.     His  position  as  Viceroy  with  the  members  of  his 


i864         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY   OF   INDIA.  35/ 

newly  constructed  Council  around  him  was,  as  has  been  pointed 
out  by  W.  S.  Seton-Karr,  very  different  from  that  which  he  had 
filled  as  '  paternal  despot '  of  the  Punjab.  Nor  was  his  power  to  be 
compared  with  that  which  had  been  wielded  by  the  more  vigorous 
and  self-reliant  of  his  predecessors.  Lord  Wellesley,  Lord  Ellen- 
borough  and  others  had  often  been  able,  owing  to  the  distance  of 
England  from  India,  and  the  peculiarities  of  the  double  govern- 
ment, to  take  the  bit  in  their  teeth,  to  strike  out  a  line  of  their  own, 
to  begin  a  war,  to  annex  a  province,  to  depose  the  descendant  of 
a  long  line  of  kings,  in  defiance  of  the  wishes  of  their  masters  at 
home,  and  with  the  happy  consciousness  that  a  deed  of  the  kind, 
once  done,  could  not  be  undone. 

But  now  all  this  was  changed.  The  electric  telegraph  had 
brought  Calcutta  to  within  a  few  days'  distance  from  Westminster, 
and  the  wise  and  energetic,  if  somewhat  despotic,  policy  of  the 
Secretary  of  State — the  Maharaja  Wood,  as  he  was  called  in  India 
— who  was  responsible  only  to  Parliament,  had  shorn  the  Viceroy 
of  much  of  his  independence  of  action,  and  seemed  likely  to  make 
him,  unless  he  was  a  man  of  exceptionally  strong  will,  too  much  of  a 
mere  mouthpiece  of  the  Government  at  home.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  remodelling  of  the  Supreme  Council  had  given  the  Governor- 
General  '  a  semblance  of  a  Cabinet  of  his  own.'  I  say  the  semblance, 
for,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  those  who  judge  by  the  analogy  of 
the  Cabinet  at  home,  the  Governor-General  was  unable,  and  indeed 
he  had  always  been  so — either  to  appoint  or  dismiss  a  single  mem- 
ber of  his  Council  without  leave  being  first  given  from  England. 
Each  member  of  Council  was,  of  course,  entitled  to  have  a  hearing 
before  any  important  measure  was  decided  on,  and  the  collective 
weight  of  the  whole  was  such  that  it  was  difficult  for  the  Viceroy, 
except  on  rare  occasions,  to  over-rule  its  opposition.  Thus,  while 
the  dignity  of  the  Governor-General  was  as  great,  or  greater  than 
it  had  ever  been,  his  power,  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  soon  found,  and 
often  bitterly  complains,  was,  by  no  means,  commensurate  with  it. 

The  Executive  Council  consisted  of  seven  members.  The  Vice- 
roy was  President.  The  Commander-in-Chief  had  a  seat  in  virtue 
of  his  office,  and  the  remaining  five  places  were  filled  by  men  who 
were  at  the  head  of  the  five  great  departments  of  State,  Home,  Leg- 
islative, Military,  Finance,  and  Public  Works.  Each  member  was 
responsible  for  the  routine  business  of  his  own  Department,  but  on 
all  important  questions  he  took  the  pleasure  of  the  Viceroy,  and 
once  a  week,  the  whole  body  met  to  discuss  the  affairs  of  the  Em- 
pire in  common.     There  was  also  a  second  or  *  Legislative  '  Coun- 


358  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

cil,  composed  of  the  members  of  the  Executive,  with  the  addition 
of  certain  unofficial  members  who  were  supposed  to  have  a  special 
knowledge  of  different  parts  of  India,  and  to  be  able  to  represent 
them  in  debate.  Of  this  Council,  also,  the  Viceroy  was  President, 
and  so  long  as  the  session  lasted,  it,  too,  met  once  a  week. 

Besides  the  general  control  over  all  the  departments  of  the  State 
which  his  office  necessarily  implies,  the  Viceroy  is  usually — and  Sir 
John  Lawrence  was  throughout  his  term  of  rule — his  own  Minister 
of  Foreign  Affairs.  In  other  words,  he  was  directly  responsible 
for  our  relations,  first,  with  all  foreign  states  which  were  supi)Osed, 
by  courtesy,  to  lie  within  the  sweep  of  his  searching  glance,  such  as 
Cabul  and  Ava  Muscat  and  Zanzibar,  and  secondly,  with  all  the 
half  independent  princes — about  a  hundred  and  fifty  in  number — 
who  are  to  be  found  between  the  Himalayas  and  Cape  Comorin, 
and  rule,  it  has  been  calculated,  over  some  600,000  square  miles  of 
territory  and  some  50,000,000  subjects.  Within  the  limits  of  this 
ample  roll  of  feudatory  princes  are  to  be  found,  on  the  one  hand, 
great  potentates  who  like  the  Nizam,  or  Scindia,  or  Holkar,  rule 
what  in  Europe  would  be  considered  spacious  monarchies,  and  who 
in  times,  not  very  remote,  have  been  names  of  terror  to  all  their 
neighbours  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  Rajpoot  chiefs,  many  of  them 
men  of  the  bluest  blood  in  India,  and  boasting  of  a  line  of  ancestry 
whose  length  not  a  few  European  monarchs  might  envy.' 

If  we  add  to  the  responsibilities  which  I  have  described,  frequent 
personal  interviews  with  the  Councillors  and  the  Secretaries  at  the 
head  of  each  Department  ;  the  voluminous  correspondence  with 
the  Secretary  of  State  in  England,  and  with  the  Governors,  Lieu- 
tenant-Governors, and  Chief  Commissioners  of  various  parts  of 
India  ;  the  interminable  applications  for  appointments,  and,  as  far 
as  may  be,  their  equitable  distribution  ;  and  then,  those  other 
duties,  which,  though  they  admit  of  less  accurate  admeasurement, 
are  not  less  real  or  less  exhausting,  the  laying  of  a  foundation 
stone,  the  presiding  at  a  public  meeting,  the  inspection  of  a  new 
railway  or  canal,  the  visit  to  a  school,  a  jail  or  a  penitentiary,  the 
magnificent  but  burdensome  pageant  of  a  Durbar,  the  progresses 
through  his  vast  dominions,  the  long  succession  of  dinner  parties 
and  festivities,  the  telegrams  arriving  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and 
far  into  the  night, — we  get  a  sum  total  of  worry  and  of  work,  which 

'  For  more  detailed  accounts  of  the  machinery  of  the  Indian  Government  at 
this  period,  see  Wyllie's  Essays  on  the  External  Policy  of  India,  ^.  1-4  ;  Hunter's 
Life  of  Lord  Mayo,  vol.  i.  pp.  189-199,  and  an  article  on  the  Viceroyalty  of  Lord 
Laivrence,'u\  the  Edinburgh  Revieu<  for  April,  1S70,  by  W.  S.  Seton-Karr. 


i864  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY   OF    INDIA.  359 

is  enough  to  break  down  the  strongest  man  at  the  strongest  period 
of  his  Ufe. 

No  man,  certainly,  could  have  been  found  who  would  have  been 
more  equal  to  such  a  strain  than  John  Lawrence  when  he  was  in 
his  prime,  and  few  could  have  been  found  who  were  more  equal  to 
it,  even  now,  when  his  prime  was  past.  Important  papers  from 
each  of  the  great  Departments  flow  into  Government  House  with- 
out intermission  throughout  the  day,  and  their  united  streams 
meet  in  the  Viceroy's  private  study.  They  are  contained  in  oblong 
mahogany  boxes  which,  if  he  does  not  work  at  them  in  season  and 
out  of  season,  must  overwhelm  him  by  their  mere  size  and  number. 
Lord  Canning,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  among  his  other  great  gifts  as 
a  ruler,  certainly  did  not  possess  that  of  rapid  despatch,  used  often 
during  the  Mutiny — as  eye-witnesses  in  high  position  have  de- 
scribed him  to  me — to  be  surrounded,  as  it  were,  by  a  double  or 
triple  line  of  these  boxes,  which  stood  breast  high,  entirely  hiding 
him  from  view  as  he  sat  conscientiously  and  pathetically  working 
away  at  one  unit  in  the  vast  total.  Sir  John  Lawrence,  whose 
powers  of  despatch  were  one  of  the  chief  secrets  of  his  success, 
and  who  had  gone  through  life  on  the  double-barrelled  principle  of 
'  no  arrears  '  and  '  what  you  do,  do  thoroughly,'  seldom  went  to 
bed  till  the  last  box  had  been  cleared  off  and  there  was  a  free  field 
for  the  first  arrivals  of  the  following  morning. 

The  new  Viceroy  was  fortunate  in  many  of  the  men  whom  he 
found  at  starting  on  his  Council,  and  in  many  of  the  Governors  or 
Lieutenant-Governors  who  were  responsible  for  various  portions  of 
his  vast  charge.  The  Financial  Member  of  Council  was  his  oldest 
Indian  friend.  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  who,  after  being  recalled  a 
few  years  before  by  Sir  Charles  Wood  for  an  act  of  conscientious 
insubordination,  from  his  post  as  Governor  of  Madras,  had  had  the 
satisfaction  of  finding  that  India  could  not  long  get  on  without 
him  ;  and,  on  the  invitation  of  the  same  Sir  Charles  Wood,  had 
now  returned  to  a  hardly  less  important  post,  the  Chancellorship 
of  the  Exchequer,  as  it  might  be  called,  of  the  whole  Indian 
Empire.  He  was  busy  as  ever  in  ferreting  out  abuses.  His 
brain  teemed  with  schemes  of  reform — economical,  educational, 
and  philanthropic.  No  grass  was  ever  likely  to  grow  under  his 
feet. 

The  Military  Member  of  Council  had  been  the  dearest  friend  of 
Heiiry  Lawrence,  and  in  spite  of  much  official  friction  in  byegone 
times  v/hen  he  was  Chief-Engineer  in  the  Punjab,  was  by  no  means 
unfriendly  to  Sir  John.     '  I  have  had  many  rubs  with  Robert  Na- 


360  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

pier,'  says  his  chief  in  one  of  his  letters  written  about  this  time, 
*  but  he  is  a  noble  fellow.' 

The  Legal  Member  was  Sir  Henry  Maine,  who,  before  he  came 
out  to  India,  had  set  a  permanent  mark  on  thought  and  literature 
by  the  publication  of  his  book  on  '  Ancient  Law,'  and  has  certainly 
left  his  stamp  on  the  Statute  Book  of  India  by  the  many  wise  laws 
which,  in  conjunction  with  his  chief,  he  was  instrumental  in  ma- 
turing and  carrying  through  both  Councils. 

The  ordinary  civilian  Members  were  William  Grey  and  H.  B. 
Harington.  The  Commander-in-Chief  was  Sir  Hugh  Rose,  a  man 
of  great  energy,  to  the  brilliancy  of  whose  campaign  in  Central 
India,  towards  the  close  of  the  Mutiny,  history  has  perhaps,  as  yet, 
done  too  little  justice.  He  was  a  true  friend  of  the  soldier,  ever 
ready  to  suggest  plans  for  his  good.  But  his  best  friends  would 
admit  that  his  presence  in  Council  was  not  calculated  to  facilitate 
the  despatch  of  public  business.  He  was  uncompromising  and 
impracticable  ;  always  ready  to  re-open  a  question  when  it  had 
been  discussed  and  decided  ;  and  his  return  to  England  at  the  end 
of  the  following  year,  while  it  was  universally  admitted  to  be  a  great 
loss  to  the  army,  was  felt  to  be  a  relief  by  all  those  members  of 
Council  who  knew  that  there  was  much  to  be  done,  and  not  too 
much  time  in  which  to  do  it. 

As  regards  the  Presidencies  and  the  chief  Provincial  Govern- 
ments, Bengal  was  subject  to  Sir  Cecil  Beadon  ;  Madras,  to  Sir 
William  Denison  ;  Bombay,  to  Sir  Bartle  Frere.  Drummond  was 
Lieutenant-Governor  of  th^  North-West ;  Oude,  destined  through- 
out Sir  John  Lawrence's  reign  to  be  the  chief  battle-field  of  tenant- 
right,  formed  the  Chief  Commissionership  of  Sir  Charles  Wingfield, 
the  most  thorough-going  champion  of  the  Talukdars.  Phayre  was 
Chief  Commissioner  of  British  Burmah  ;  Meade  was  Resident  at 
the  Court  of  Scindia.  The  Central  Provinces  formed  an  almost 
virgin  soil  for  the  energies,  physical  and  intellectual,  of  Sir  Richard 
Temple,  while  Sir  Robert  Montgomery  and  Sir  Donald  Macleod, 
two  of  Sir  John's  right  hand  men  in  byegone  years,  were  to  rule  in 
succession  and  with  success  the  great  province  with  which  his  name 
will  ever  be  connected. 

The  Chief  Secretaries  of  the  various  departments  were  hardly  less 
notable.  Sir  Henry  Durand,  Sir  William  Muir,  Sir  Richard  Temple, 
Mr.  Seton-Karr,  were  successively  Foreign  Secretaries.  Sir  Edward 
Clive  Bayley  was  Secretary  of  the  Home  Department ;  E.  H.  Lush- 
ington  of  Finance  ;  Whitley  Stokes  of  the  Legislative  ;  General 
Richard    Strachey,    and    afterwards    Colonel    Dickens,    of   Public 


i864         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY   OF    INDIA.  361 

Works  ;  while  Sir  Henry  Norman,  whose  name  has  occurred  so 
often  in  these  pages,  acted  as  Chief  Mihtary  Secretary  throughout 
the  whole  period  of  Sir  John's  Viceroyalty.  The  names  of  Sir 
William  Mansfield  as  Commander-in-Chief,  of  Sir  John  Strachey, 
of  Sir  George  Yule,  of  Sir  George  Campbell  and  of  others,  come  to 
the  front  more  prominently  in  the  latter  part  of  his  reign.  Such 
were  some  of  the  chief  personages  who  play  their  part  during  the 
five  years  which  I  have  now  to  sketch.  It  is  well  to  bring  their 
names  together  at  the  outset,  for  it  must  always  be  remembered 
when,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  I  say  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  did  this 
or  that,  that  these  men,  some  or  all  of  them,  as  they  shared  in  his 
labours,  so  are  they  entitled  to  have— and  he  above  all  would  have 
wished  them  to  have — a  full  share  of  the  credit. 

A  few  extracts  from  one  or  two  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  private 
letters  to  friends  in  England  will  throw  light  on  his  feelings  and 
occupations  during  his  first  three  months  of  heavy  work  at  Calcutta. 

February    18,  1864. 

My  dear  Eastwick, — You  must  not  judge  from  my  silence  that  I  have 
forgotten  my  old  friends  in  the  Council,  but  thi  fact  is  that  I  have  had 
uncommonly  hard  work  since  my  arrival.  Work  had  been,  for  some 
time,  in  arrears  consequent  on  poor  Lord  Elgin's  sickness  and  death,  and 
some  of  the  heaviest  cases  were  under  consideration.  I  have  been  liter- 
ally v/orking  ten  hours  a  day,  and  have  had  little  inclination  to  write  to 
anyone  but  my  wife.  I  now,  however,  begin  to  see  a  little  daylight,  and 
hope,  in  another  month,  to  be  in  a  thoroughly  comfortable  position. 

I  have  received' the  kindest  and  best  possible  reception.  All  my  old 
friends,  European  and  Native,  have  welcomed  me,  and  as  regards  my 
new  colleagues.  I  like  them  all  very  well.  They  are  thorough  gentlemen, 
and  everything  goes  on  smoothly.  The  only  difficulty  I  have  experienced 
is  in  getting  work  through.  But  we  have  certainly  made  some  progress. 
Maine  is  a  most  agreeable,  pleasant  fellow  in  every  respect.  Trevelyan 
works  very  hard,  and  is  the  great  debater  in  the  Council.  He  goes  at 
everything.     He  has  treated  me  most  frankly  and  cordially. 

If  I  can  only  keep  my  health,  I  shall  do  very  well.  But  Calcutta  is  a 
horrid  place.  The  natives  from  up-country  detest  it.  The  Nawab  of 
Rampore  only  arrived  a  fortnight  ago,  and  left  to-day.  One  of  his  people 
died  of  cholera  after  three  hours'  sickness,  and  this,  with  his  dislike  of 
the  place,  sent  him  off.  He  said  'Htczoor!  Kalkutta  Id  hoiua  hyara 
Jiai''  (Your  Highness,  the  climate  of  Calcutta  is  bad).  We  have  two  na- 
tive councillors  still  here,  one  the  Maharaja  of  Vizianagram,  and  tiie  other 
Raja  Sahib  Dyal,  a  Sikh,  a  very  good  fellow.  Let  me  hear  now  ancl  then 
from  you,  and  pray  send  my  wife  any  scrap  of  news  which  may  comfort 
her.  She  is  very  mucli  out  of  spirits.  Had  I  known  how  much  it  would 
have  vexed  her,  I  would  not  have  come  out. 


362  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

To  Sir  Erskine  Perry  he  writes  : 

Now  that  there  is  comparatively  a  little  lull,  I  must  begin  and  write  to. 
my  friends.  Until  now,  I  have  had  no  breathinc^  time.  The  arrears 
have  been  so  heavy.  We  are  gettinjj  on  pretty  well,  but  we  have  break- 
ers ahead  in  the  shape  of  a  financial  deficit.  The  opium  revenue  has 
fallen  off  largely,  and  our  expenditure  is  gradually  but  surely  creeping 
on.  .  .  .  Everybody  is,  in  the  abstract,  for  economy,  but  whenever  it  is 
proposed,  objections  are  immediately  raised.  This  is  the  case  at  home, 
as  you  know,  just  as  much  as  out  here.  The  English  army  now  is  the 
great  cause  of  expenditure.  Every  arm  of  it,  day  by  day,  in  some  way 
or  other,  costs,  more  money.  Nothing  has  as  yet  been  done  in  the  rent 
question.   .   .   . 

I  am  urging  Beadon  to  make  careful  inquiry  among  his  best  officers, 
and  ascertain  the  real  status  of  the  tenants  with  the  righ  tof  occu])ancy 
in  Bengal.  The  planters  are  very  strong,  for  the  great  body  of  zemindars 
are  on  their  side.  So  are  most  of  the  lawyers,  and  I  suspect  that  the 
civilians  are  rather  afraid  of  meddling  with  the  rent  question,  though 
some  of  them  '  speak  out.  The  Chief  Justice  being  on  the  side  of  the 
planters  is  a  great  blow  and  a  sad  discouragement  to  the  ryots.  Peacock, 
I  believe,  will  go  home  for  nine  or  ten  months.  He  has  been  suffering 
from  pains  in  the  head  from  over-work.  By  all  accounts,  he  does  work 
immensely. 

W'e  are  all  pretty  quiet  in  India,  but  I  do  not  think  that  on  the  whole 
there  is  a  good  feeling,  I  was  yesterday  talking  to  Dinkar  Rao,  the 
Gwalior  Dewan,  who  was  last  year  in  the  Legislative  Council.  He  said 
that  with  the  exception  of  the  Revenue  Administration  in  the  North- 
West,  the  people  did  not  like  our  system.  He  abused  the  new  police 
beyond  measure,  and  said  that  we  had  too  much  law,  too  much  report- 
writing,  and  that  all  the  old  Sahibs  who  knew  the  people  were  leaving 
the  country. 

To  Sir  Frederick  Currie  he  writes  on  March  20  : — 

I  think  that,  on  the  whole,  things  look  tolerably  bright.  In  spite  of 
the  falling  off  in  the  opium  revenue,  we  shall  have  no  deficit.  I  don't 
think  that  the  Native  Army  are  khoosh  (content).  There  is  no  active 
disaffection  that  I  can  learn.  But  they  are  not  well  off.  Prices  are  high, 
work  is  hard,  furloughs  are  scarce,  and  so  on.  They  don't  like  the  ser- 
vice down  here  in  Bengal,  and  still  less  that  to  the  East.     This  is  not  to 

be  wondered  at.     The  Sudder  have  gone  to  sleep.     They  have  had 

five  judges  last  year,  and  now  ask  for  seven,  and  as  long  as  they  get  what 
they  ask,  and  draw  their  own  pay,  they  will  go  on  asking  and  not  work- 
ing.    I  told that  if  they  do  not  look  sharp,  the  whole  batch  will  I)e 

called  on  to  take  their  pensions.     I  never  saw  the  service  with  so  few 

'  Notably  George  Campbell  and  W.  S.  Scton-Karr. 


i864        JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  363 

men  in  the  higher  classes  with  talent  and  spirit.     Here  the  one  idea  is 
to  make  acts. 

The  three  months  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  spent  in  Calcutta 
before  moving  up  the  country,  not  only  saw  all  arrears  cleared  off 
but  were  fruitful  of  promise  for  the  future.  The  various  depart- 
ments woke  up  at  his  touch  to  fresh  zeal  and  life.  A  Sanitary 
Commission  was  appointed,  under  the  Presidency  of  John  Strachey, 
to  inquire  into  the  condition  of  towns  and  cantonments  throughout 
the  country,  and  to  make  suggestions  for  their  improvement.  It 
was  a  reform  which  had  long  been  needed,  and  was  now  begun  in 
good  earnest.  The  Hindus  were  forbidden  to  throw  their  dead 
bodies  into  the  Hoogly,  an  order  which  was  forthwith  represented 
by  the  Viceroy's  enemies  in  the  press  and  by  '  the  good  folks  at 
home,'  as  he  calls  them,  as  an  insidious  attempt  by  the  Puritan 
Governor-General  to  interfere  with  the  Hindu  religion.  The  steps 
taken  to  lessen  the  ravages  of  disease  among  the  soldiers  were 
Avarmly  sanctioned.  The  foundation  stone  of  a  Sailor's  Home  was 
laid,  after  careful  inquiry,  by  the  Viceroy  himself,  in  an  appropriate 
spot — an  attempt  to  save  one  of  the  most  helpless  parts  of  the  Cal- 
cutta community  from  their  worst  enemies  and  from  themselves. 
The  Sitana  war  was  wound  up  and  precautions  taken  against  any 
possible  renewal  of  it  in  the  following  years  by  the  more  aggressive 
spirits  in  our  services.  Raja  Sahib  Dyal,  one  of  the  best  men  for 
the  purpose  in  all  India,  was  summoned  from  the  Punjab  to  take  a 
seat  in  the  Legislative  Council.  Sir  Richard  Temple  was  appointed 
to  the  Central  Provinces  in  place  of  a  valetudinarian,  who  was  not 
adapted  to  develope  its  vast  capacities.  Early  in  April,  Sir  Charles 
Trevelyan  produced  his  budget,  and  in  spite  of  the  reduction  of 
duties  and  the  increased  pay  given  to  the  army,  he  was  able  to  show 
that  there  was  a  surplus.  .. 

A  visit  paid  by  Temple  to  Calcutta  in  the  early  spring  enabled 
him  to  render  a  service  of  the  old  kind  to  his  former  chief.  Sir 
Bartle  Frere  had,  in  the  preceding  year,  drawn  up  an  elaborate  at- 
tack on  the  Punjab  Frontier  policy,  which,  on  the  death  of  Lord 
Elgin,  for  whose  eye  he  had  primarily  intended  it,  he  sent  off,  ad- 
dressed to  the  new  Governor-General,  whoever  he  might  be.  The 
new  Governor-General  turned  out,  as  luck  would  have  it,  to  be  the 
very  man  whom,  by  implication  a'l  least,  Frere  attacked  as  having 
done  almost  everything  in  the  matter  of  Frontier  Policy  which  he 
ought  not  to  have  done,  and  having  failed  to  do  everything  which 
he  ought  to  have  done.  This  formidable  document  was  put  into 
Sir  John  Lawrence's  hands  as  he  touched  at  Gallc,  and  Temple,  on 


364  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864 

coining  soon  afterwards  to  pay  his  respects  to  his  old  chief  at  Gov- 
ernment House,  once  more,  like  a  Deus  ex  machind,  put  his  pen  at 
his  service,  and  gave  an  answer  to  the  attack  which  may  be  said  to 
exhaust  the  subject. 

When  I  arrived  at  Calcutta  (says  John  Lawrence  toSir  Charles  Wood), 
I  was  greeted  with  a  memorandum,  a  copy  of  which  Frere  had  sent  you, 
condemning  the  Punjab  Government  for  its  general  frontier  arrange- 
ments. I  have  had  a  reply  to  this  paper  drawn  up,  some  copies  of  which 
I  have  sent  you.  I  hope  you  will  read  Frere's  paper  and  the  reply  to- 
gether. They  are  worth  perusal.  I  am  not  aware  that  anything  has 
been  neglected  which  is  calculated  to  enable  us  to  hold  the  Border  se- 
curely and  at  a  moderate  cost.  I  do  not  know  from  whom  Frere  takes 
his  information.  I  know  he  has  no  personal  knowledge  of  the  country 
himself.  His  own  knowledge  is  limited  to  that  of  the  Scinde  frontier, 
which  in  many  essentials,  is  different  from  that  of  the  Punjab.  From 
the  borders  of  Scinde  northwards,  the  character  of  the  people,  both  in 
the  Hills  and  in  the  Plains,  differs  as  you  go  along  ;  those  of  the  Derajat 
differ  very  much  from  those  of  Kohat,  while  the  latter  again  differ  from 
those  of  Peshawur. 

Sir  Charles  Wood  duly  studied  the  attack  and  the  reply,  and  his 
decision  between  them  was  not  a  doubtful  one.  '  Nothing,'  he  says, 
'  could  be  more  precipitate  or  rash  than  Frere's  tirade  against  the 
Punjab  policy.'  .   .  . 

These  and  other  matters  settled,  Sir  John  Lawrence  started,  on 
April  15,  for  Simla,  with  clear  files  and  a  clear  conscience.  It  was 
a  step  on  which  the  doctors  had  insisted  as  a  necessary  condition  of 
his  taking  the  Viceroyalty,  and  had  been  warmly  approved  by  Sir 
Charles  Wood,  who  repeatedly  urged  him  by  letter  to  go  thither, 
even  before  he  had  finished  off  his  work  at  Calcutta.  He  took  his 
Council  with  him  ;  a  step  which,  in  spite  of  the  expense  attending 
the  move,  and  its  unpopularity  with  Indian  statesmen  of  the  old 
school.  Sir  John  Lawrence  always  maintained  was  economical,  if 
not  of  money,  at  least  of  what  was  more  important,  of  men  and  of 
work.  '  I  believe,'  he  says  in  one  of  his  letters,  '  that  we  (the  Coun- 
cil) will  do  more  work  in  one  day  here  (Simla)  than  in  five  days 
down  in  Calcutta.' 

On  his  way  to  Simla  he  wrote  as  follows,  from  Allahabad,  to  Sir 
Charles  Wood  : — 

I  left  Calcutta  on  the  night  of  the  15th,  rested  the  day  at  Bhangalpore, 
and  was  here  by  daybreak.  Thirty  years  ago  it  took  me  twenty  hours 
per  day  and  night  for  a  week  in  a  palanquin  to  do  the  distance,  and 
precious  hard  work  it  was.     The  railway  is  in  good  order,  but  there  is 


i864         JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  365 

all  the  way  a  great  absence  of  business.  No  merchandise  to  be  seen  and 
no  running  to  and  fro  of  Natives.  I  hear  that  the  want  of  accommoda- 
tion at  stations  for  Natives  is  great.  I  will  see  to  this.  The  bridge  over 
tlie  Jumna  will  be  a  splendid  affair,  but  it  will  tal<e  two  years  more  to 
complete.  I  am  to  be  up  and  about  to-morrow  morning  before  five  to 
see  what  has  been  done  and  what  is  wanted  here.  It  is  a  fine  strategical 
position,  and  a  pleasant  looking  place,  but  it  is  not  healthy  for  the  Eng- 
lish soldiers.     Good  barracks  ought  to  make  a  change. 

I  will  not  go  too  fast  about  railways.  I  am  fully  alive  to  the  financial 
difficulties  which  would  arise  from  such  a  policy.  I  have,  as  you  know, 
been  always  an  advocate  for  economy  and  care,  and  an  opponent  of  ad- 
ditional taxation.  Many  thanks  for  your  kind  inquiries.  I  am  now  pretty 
well.  I  had  rather  a  disagreeable  attack  in  Calcutta.  I  think  it  was 
mainly  from  over-work.  But  I  could  not  spare  myself  at  a  time  when 
there  was  so  much  on  hand,  so  much  that  had  been  long  postponed.  In 
administration,  despatch  saves  money  as  well  as  lime. 

On  his  way  from  Allahabad,  Sir  John  carefully  inspected  the 
Ganges  Canal,  and  when  he  reached  Meerut,  he  found  himself 
amidst  sights  and  scenes  which  were  all  his  own,  for  they  had  been 
familiar  to  him  for  thirty  years  past.  Better  still,  friendly  faces, 
the  faces  of  those  whom  he  had  last  seen  in  the  time  of  trial — his 
brother  Richard  and  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes  amongst  them — met 
him  at  every  turn,  and  the  lordly  loneliness  of  Calcutta  was  now,  in 
great  measure,  a  thing  of  the  past.  He  travelled  with  as  little  state 
as  possible  ;  a  fact  which  was  soon  known  and  duly  criticised  by 
the  press.  But  the  eagerness  to  see  and  greet  him  was  probably  not 
less,  but  greater  than  if  he  had  managed  to  transform  himself,  and 
had  come  attended,  as  other  Governors-General  had  done,  by  a 
camp  of,  perhaps,  some  thousand  followers. 

In  himself  was  all  his  state  ; 
More  solemn  than  the  tedious  pomp  that  waits 
On  princes,  when  their  rich  retinue  long 
Of  horses  led  and  grooms  besmeared  with  gold 
Dazzles  the  crowd  and  sets  them  all  agape. 

On  April  29,  early  in  the  morning,  it  was  known  at  the  quiet  hill 
station  of  Kussowlie  that  the  Governor-General  was  approaching. 
An  eye  witness,  whose  account  I  slightly  condense,  says — • 

Up  he  rode,  round  the  corner  abutting  on  the  parade  ground,  the 
same  'John  Lawrence'  as  of  old.  It  made  one's  heart  leap  into  one's 
mouth  to  see  him  ;  the  same  as  ever,  a  little  aged  it  may  be,  but  still  the 
John  Lawrence  of  old.  Eminence  liad  not  changed  him.  He  came 
riding   upon   a  little   nag  which   appeared  to  know  whom  he  had   the 


366  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

honour  of  carrying,  so  jauntily  diJ  lie  carry  Jiiinsclf.  Sir  John,  wlio  was 
in  a  neatly  made  suit  of  grey,  with  his  trousers  well  above  his  ankles, 
rode  on  quickly,  returning  the  heartfelt  salutations  of  those  who  hap- 
pened to  be  by  the  way,  and  making  for  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes'  resi- 
dence. Dick  Lawrence  rode  beside  him,  and  who  could  envy  that  honest 
looking  face  the  aspect  of  exultation  thereon  depicted  ?  His  brother,  the 
Governor-General  of  India,  at  his  side  !  Then  came  Sir  Herbert  and 
others.  We  missed  one  there,  Henry  Lawrence,  the  man  who  clied  '  try- 
ing to  do  his  duty.'  But  it  was  a  refreshing  sight,  and  there  were  few 
who  did  not  feel  that,  at  last,  despite  the  want  of  aristocratic  influence, 
we  had  the  right  man  in  the  right  place. 

At  noon  Sir  John,  still  in  his  grey  heather  suit,  with  no  stars  or  rib- 
bons to  awe  poor  human  nature,  made  his  appearance  on  the  parade 
ground  that  he  might  see  how,  in  this  secluded  spot,  the  gallant  soldiers 
whom  the  Queen  had  committed  to  his  charge  were  housed.  Sturdily 
supported  by  a  trusty  friend  in  the  shape  of  a  walking-stick  nearly  as 
large  as  himself,  he  walked  round  the  barracks  occupied  by  the  Head- 
quarters of  the  94th  and  those  of  the  depot,  followed,  in  this  instance,  by 
a  brilliant  staff  of  the  officers  of  the  Station.  He  said  little,  but  took 
note  of  the  two  kennels  in  which  British  soldiers  are  still  lodged.  The 
hospital  was  not  forgotten  ;  and  then  lie  was  off  to  the  spot  where  the 
name  of  Lawrence  will  always  be  held  in  veneration,  the  asylum  left  as 
a  legacy  to  his  country  by  his  noble-hearted  brother.  As  night  fell,  an 
enormous  bonfire  lighted  up  the  hillside  on  which  the  asylum  stands,  the 
work  of  English  boys  saved  from  a  languishing  boyhood  by  him  who  is 
gone  ;  and  before  Sir  John  laid  his  head  on  his  pillow  that  night  he 
might  truly  say,  '  The  Lawrences  have  done  some  good  in  their  gener- 
ation.' 

In  the  cool  air  of  Simla,  the  Viceroy  seemed  to  take  a  new  lease 
cf  health  and  strength,  and  so  impressed  was  he  with  the  benefits 
to  the  public  service  to  be  derived  from  the  residence  of  Govern- 
ment there  during  the  hot  season,  that  he  wrote  to  Sir  Charles 
Wood  proposing,  not  in  his  own  interest, — for  leave  to  that  effect 
had  been  long  since  given  him  as  a  condition  of  his  returning  to 
India — but  for  the  benefit  of  all  concerned,  that  the  Government 
should  habitually  spend  six  out  of  every  twelve  months  there.  The 
impression  had  been  gaining  ground  for  several  years  past,  that,  in 
many  respects,  Calcutta  was  not  well  fitted  to  be  the  capital  of 
India.  Situated  on  the  extreme  eastern  corner  of  the  Empire,  in 
the  burning  plains  of  Bengal,  amidst  a  network  of  sluggish  streams, 
exposed  to  cyclones,  and  floods,  and  pestilences,  what  wonder  that 
it  had  come  to  be  looked  upon,  during  six  months  of  the  year,  as  a 
vast  vapour  bath  in  which  those  Europeans,  who  had  the  will  to 
work,  must  needs  do  so  at  half  power  ?    It  had  long  been  said,  that 


1864  JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  367 

of  every  thousand    soldiers   quartered  in   Bengal,    sixty-five   were 
doomed  to  die  within  the  year. 

There  has  always  been  a  party  in  India  who  looked  upon  Bom- 
Lay  as  its  natural  capital.  Lord  Canning  had  thought  of  moving 
his  Head-quarters  to  some  place  in  Central  India  ;  while  the  brill- 
iant author  of  '  The  Letters  of  a  Competition  Wallah  '  had  argued 
forcibly  in  favour  of  Jubbulpore.  But  the  vested  interests  at  stake 
were  so  strong  that  the  question  had,  once  again,  been  shelved,  and 
Sir  John  Lawrence  seems  to  have  thought  that  his  proposal  would 
meet  some  of  the  strongest  objections  which  had  been  urged  against 

Calcutta. 

Simla:  May  30,  1S64. 

I  think  it  rig-ht  to  ask  you  what  you  think  of  the  plan  of  the  Governor- 
General  and  the  Council  coming  up  to  Simla  every  year  for  the  summer. 
With  a  railway  to  Darjeeling,  the  change  might  be  to  that  place.  But 
the  accommodation  required  is  so  great  compared  with  the  means  of 
these  Hill  Sanitaria,  that  if  absence  is  allowed  from  Calcutta  for  the  whole 
of  us,  it  will  be  well  to  fix  on  one  spot,  so  that  we  may  build  what  is  re- 
quired for  ourselves.  ]\Iy  own  idea,  if  you  do  not  object  to  the  plan,  is 
that  Simla  is,  on  the  whole,  the  best  place.  Even  now,  we  are  only  six 
days  from  Calcutta,  and  when  the  railway  is  open  to  Umballa,  the  time 
will  be  reduced  to  four.  Simla,  also,  while  it  is  situated  in  a  thoroughly 
healthy  climate  and  among  a  quiet,  docile  population,  is  also  well  placed 
from  whence  to  watch  the  North-West  Provinces,  the  Punjab,  and  the 
Western  Frontier.  The  Governor-General  and  Council  might  be  six 
months  here  and  six  in  Calcutta.  And  this,  I  think,  would  prove  the 
happiest  solution  of  the  question  as  to  the  change  of  the  seat  of  Govern- 
ment. Out  of  Calcutta  there  is,  to  my  mind,  no  place  so  well  situated 
for  the  capital  of  India  as  Simla.  Allahabad,  Agra,  Delhi,  Central 
India,  are  all  out  of  the  question.  But  by  keeping  Calcutta  as  the  cap- 
ital, and  allowing  the  Governnient  to  come  to  Simla  for  six  months,  you 
would  conciliate  many  interests. 

Next  to  this  arrangement,  perhaps  the  best  would  be  to  transfer  the 
Government  of  India  to  Poona,  which  is  a  salubrious  position,  and,  prac- 
tically, on  the  sea-coast.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  only  eighty  miles  distant, 
and  connected  by  railway  with  Bombay.  But  I  am  not  in  favour  of  this 
arrangement.  Poona,  though  well  placed  for  communication  with  Eng- 
land, is  quite  in  a  corner  as  regards  India.  The  great  block  of  tlie 
Rajpootana  states  and  the  Gwalior  country  lies  right  between  Poona  and 
the  chief  British  possessions  in  Hindustan.  In  the  event  of  commotions, 
the  communications  with  Upper  India  would  be  cut  off.  A  Governor- 
General  at  Poona  would  be  practically  unknown  in  Hindustan.  IkU  a. 
Governor-General  who  was  half  the  year  in  Calcutta  and  the  other  halt- 
year  in  Simla,  would  be  seen  and  known  throughout  our  chief  posses- 
sions. From  Calcutta  to  Simla  we  have  a  chain  of  military  stations  con- 
necting the  two  places,  and  holding  all  the  intermediate  country. 


368  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

I  began  this  letter  with  the  view  of  writing-  on  matters  whicii,  to  a  great 
extent,  personally  concern  myself,  and  I  have  diverged  into  a  question 
of  which  is  the  best  place  for  the  seat  of  Government.  I  think,  on  the 
whole,  that  it  is  best  for  the  public  service  that  the  Governor-General 
should  not  be  separated  long  from  the  Council.  So  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, nothing  would  be  more  agreeable  to  me  than  to  move  about  the 
country  without  a  Council.  But  I  do  not  think  that  such  a  system,  ex- 
cept under  very  peculiar  circumstances,  is  good  for  the  State.  The 
President  in  Council  will  seldom  have  sufficient  influence  to  work  the 
coach  as  it  should  be  worked  ;  while  few  Governors -General  will  be 
found  who  are  able  to  dispose  of  very  important  matters  alone.  A  Gov- 
ernor-General will,  as  a  rule,  be  inclined  to  '  cushion  '  such  matters  until 
he  can  see  his  way,  and  until  he  joins  his  Council,  while,  if  he  transmits 
such  cases  to  his  Council  for  their  decision,  conflicting  opinions  will 
arise.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  I  think  the  best  plan  is  to  keep  the  Gov- 
ernor-General and  his  Council  together. 

And  now  as  regards  myself.  I  have  not  forgotten  what  you  said  to 
me  when  I  parted  from  you  at  the  India  Ofiice.  I  then  understood  that 
you  expected  me  to  tell  you  if  I  found  that  I  could  not  stand  the  climate. 
Now  I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  do  not  think  I  could  do  my  work  and  re- 
main in  Calcutta  more  than  six  months  in  the  year.  The  climate  there  is 
very  bad.  To  my  mind  almost  pestilential,  certainly  it  is  so  to  me.  I 
was  not  very  ill,  but  I  was  never  thoroughly  well  there,  and  as  the  heat  in- 
creased, I  began  to  suffer.  I  can  do  the  work,  and  only  just  do  it,  in  the 
way  I  think  it  ought  to  be  done.  I  begin  at  6  A.M.,  and  with  an  interval 
of  half  an  hour  for  breakfast,  I  sit  at  my  desk  until  5.30  P.M.,  working  all 
the  time  as  hard  as  I  can.  When  necessary  I  work  again  after  I  come 
in  from  my  ride  or  drive.  But  this  is  exceptional.  Now,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  do  this  (as  I  have  said)  for  more  than  six  months  of  the 
best  season  in  Calcutta.  If,  then,  you  think  that  it  is  for  the  public  in- 
terest to  agree  to  some  such  arrangements  as  I  have  sketched,  I  will 
gladly  stay  in  India.  If  not,  I  would  rather  give  up  and  go  home  next 
March  or  April.  I  hope  you  will  decide  the  matter  entirely  on  public 
grounds,  and,  be  assured  that,  in  so  deciding,  I  shall  be  quite  content.' 
I  have  spoken  both  to  Dr.  Hathaway,  my  Private  Secretary,  and  to  Dr. 
Farquhar,  my  medical  attendant,  both  of  whom  are  able  men,  and  who 
understand  my  constitution. 

I  think  that  the  people  of  both  the  Punjab  and  Delhi,  but  particularly 
the  former,  would  not  like  my  going  down  the  country  without  paying 
them  a  visit.  If  you  do  not  object,  I  should  propose  that  the  Council 
leave  this  early  in  October  for  Calcutta.  I  would  run  down  to  Lahore 
and  hold  a  Durbar  of  all  the  chief  men  of  the  country,  every  one  of  whom 
I  know  personally,  and  I  would  then  start  for  Delhi  and  Calcutta,  arriv- 
ing at  the  latter  place  by  the  first  of  November.  My  wife  is  anxious  to 
come  out  in  the  cold  weather,  should  I  remain  in  India.  Will  you,  then, 
kindly  give  her  a  line  directly  you  have  made  up  your  mind  on  the  Cal- 
cutta question  ?     A  few  words  will  suffice,   as  I   shall  prepare  her  for 


1 364  JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  369 

liearing  from  you.  I  will  send  you,  as  soon  as  I  can,  a  memo,  showing- 
the  cost  of  the  Governor-General's  Council  coming-  up  here.  If  it  was  a 
fixed  arrangement,  the  expense  would,  for  subsequent  years,  be  much  re- 
duced ;  for  we  should  leave  the  bulk  of  the  office  at  Simla  when  we  go 
down. 

With  the  general  drift  of  this  letter, — that  it  was  desirable  that 
the  seat  of  Government  should  be  moved  to  a  Hill  station  during 
the  hot  months  ;  that  the  Governor-General  should  usually  be 
accompanied  by  his  Council,  but  that  he  should  also  show  himself, 
from  time  to  time,  in  various  parts  of  the  country  without  it ;  and, 
in  particular,  that  he  should  hold  the  proposed  Durbars  at  Lahore 
and  Delhi,  Sir  Charles  Wood  entirely  concurred.  But  he  naturally 
hesitated  to  take  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of  fixing  upon 
Simla  as  the  permanent  seat  of  Government  during  six  months  of 
the  year. 

Imagine  (he  says)  the  state  of  affairs  if  Lord  Canning  had  been  at 
Simla  when  the  Mutiny  broke  out.  He  would  have  been  entirely  cut  off. 
You  and  he  might  have  arranged  affairs  in  the  Punjab  and  Upper  India, 
hut  I  don't  think  the  people  of  Calcutta  would  have  been  equal  to  the 
occasion.  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  therefore  that  such  an  arrangement 
shall  be  stereotyped  for  all  time  to  come.  If  it  is  necessary  for  the  Gov- 
ernor-General and  his  Council  to  go  away  from  Calcutta  together  every 
vear,  it  may  be  a  question  whether  they  should  not  go  to  some  such 
place  as  Darjeeling,  where  they  will  soon  be  within  a  day  of  Calcutta 
and  can  hardly  be  cut  off.  With  regard  to  yourself,  I  have  no  sort  of 
difficulty  in  saying  that,  with  or  without  your  Council,  you  are  quite 
welcome  to  be  away  from  Calcutta,  for  six  months,  and  therefore  you 
may  set  your  mind  quite  at  ease  on  that  point.  If  you  like,  next  sum- 
mer, to  go  and  see  Madras  and  the  Neilgherries,  and  put  some  life  into 
their  proceedings,  or  visit  Darjeeling  and  our  new  enemies  in  Bhotan, 
or  to  go  to  Simla  again,  I  have  no  sort  of  objection.  I  will  endeavour  to 
see  Lady  Lawrence.  But  I  do  not  think  that  anything  I  have  said  should 
bring  you  home,  if  your  health  stands  as  well  as  I  understand  it  to  have 
done  hitherto.  And  I  infinitely  prefer  your  remaining  in  India,  working 
at  half  power,  as  one  would  say  of  a  steam-engine,  than  to  replace  you 
by  anybody  else. 

Sir  John  Lawrence,  in  his  reply,  gives  a  giaphic  account  of  the 
local  advantages  of  Simla  : — ■ 

In  the  first  place,  I  must  thank  you  for  your  very  kind  letter  about 
myself,  for  which  I  feel  most  grateful.  No  doubt  such  a  change  as  I 
propose  is  a  serious  one,  and  requires  much  consideration.  I  do  not, 
however,  think  that  a  better  arrangen-ient  is  to  be  made.  The  work 
now  is,  probably,  treble,  possibly  quadruple,  what  it  was  twenty  years 

VOL.  II. — 24 


370  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

aj^o,  and  it  is,  for  the  most  part,  of  a  very  difficult  nature.  Neither 
could  your  Governor-General  and  his  Council  really  do  it  in  the  hot 
weather  in  Calcutta.  At  the  best,  as  you  say,  they  would  work  at  half 
speed.  .  .  .  This  place,  of  all  Hill  stations,  seems  to  me  the  best  for  the 
Supreme  Government.  Here  you  are  with  one  foot,  I  may  say,  in  the 
Punjab,  and  another  in  the  North-West  Provinces.  Here  you  are  among 
a  docile  population,  and  yet  near  enough  to  influence  Oude.  Around 
you,  in  a  word,  are  all  the  warlike  races  of  India,  all  those  on  whose 
cliaracter  and  power  our  hold  in  India,  exclusive  of  our  own  countrymen, 
depends.  No  doubt  there  is  the  danger  of  being  cut  off  from  the  seat  of 
Government.  Still,  on  the  other  hand,  railways  will  lessen  that  danger. 
Nowadays,  you  have  no  large  native  army  to  fear.  What  you  have  on 
this  side  of  India  you  have  mainly  round  and  about  you,  so  that  your 
Governor-General,  if  he  has  any  discernment,  is  well  placed  to  perceive 
the  first  signs  of  danger,  and  is  thus  able  to  apply  a  remedy. 

Another  subject  on  which  Sir  John  Lawrence's  letters  show  that 
he  was  much  interested  at  this  time  was  the  all  important,  but,  un- 
fortunately, to  the  ordinary  Englishman,  the  somewhat  forbidding 
questions  of  the  '  Redemption  of  the  Land  Tax,'  and  the  extension 
of  the  'Permanent  Settlement.'  To  the  Redemption  of  the  Land 
Tax  he  was,  for  reasons  into  which  I  need  not  enter  here,  opposed. 
To  the  extension  of  the  Permanent  Settlement,  that  is  to  the  per- 
petual limitation  of  the  demands  of  the  State  on  its  subjects  in  the 
shape  of  land  tax,  he  gave  a  qualified  and  statesmanlike  support. 
No  one  was  more  alive  than  he  to  the  want  of  enquiry  and  fore- 
thought with  which  the  Permanent  Settlement  had  been  originally 
introduced  into  Bengal.  The  men  who  introduced  it  had  done  so 
on  the  only  lines  with  which  the  statesmen  of  that  day  were  famil- 
iar, those  of  the  English  land  system.  Gross  injustice  had  thus 
been  done  to  the  peasants  who  had  true  proprietary  or  occupancy 
rights  in  the  soil  ;  and  there  had  been  the  standing  grievance  ever 
since  of  a  taxation  which  pressed  unequally  on  different  parts  of 
one  and  the  same  empire.  In  the  year  1861,  for  instance,  it  was 
calculated  that  while  Bengal  with  its  280,000  square  miles  of  fertile 
land  and  its  population  of  41,000,000  paid  only  8,000,000/.  to  the 
State,  Madras,  with  much  less  than  half  that  number  of  square 
miles  of  poor  soil,  and  little  more  than  half  its  population,  had  paid 
not  less  than  6,000,000/.  In  other  words,  an  assessment  of  the  land 
tax  which  had  seemed  sufficiently  heavy  at  a  time  when  the  land 
was  very  imperfectly  cultivated,  was  found  to  be  much  too  light 
now  that  it  had  been  ijrought  into  proper  cultivation.  And  the 
State  suffered  accordingly.  Considerations  of  this  kind  had  made 
John  Lawrence,  in  his  earlier  life,  a  strong  opponent  of  the  Bengal 


i864  JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  371 

and  an  equally  strong  adherent  of  the  North-West  system.  Under 
this  latter  system  the  land  tax  was  assessed  low,  for  long  periods  of 
twenty  or  thirty  years,  but  at  the  end  of  that  time  was  liable  to  re- 
vision and  enhancement,  and  it  was  this  system  which  he  had  him- 
self introduced,  with  marked  success,  into  the  Punjab.  But  he  was 
no  slave — as  is  too  often  the  case  with  officials — to  a  stolid  con- 
sistency. He  was  not  afraid  to  change  his  mind  when  he  saw 
reason  to  do  so.  He  saw  that  the  mistakes  which  had  been  made, 
and  the  injustice  of  which  we  had  been  guilty  in  Bengal,  were  no 
part  of  the  Permanent  Settlement  as  such,  but  were  the  result  of 
the  ignorance  or  carelessness  of  those  who  had  introduced  it  ;  that 
revisions  of  assessment  were  expensive  to  the  State  and  vexatious 
to  the  people  ;  that  if  the  masses  were  prosperous  and  contented, 
the  military  force  necessary  to  hold  the  country  would  be  small ; 
finally,  that  the  benefit  to  the  cultivators  if  they  could  feel  certain 
that  they  would  be  allowed  to  reap  the  full  fruit  of  the  labour 
which  they  expended  on  the  improvement  of  the  soil,  would  be  in- 
calculable. On  these  and  other  grounds  he  was  anxious  that,  while 
the  mistakes  made  in  Bengal  were  carefully  avoided  elsewhere,  and 
as  far  as  possible  rectified  in  Bengal  itself,  the  benefits  of  a  Perma- 
nent Settlement  should  be  extended  to  all  those  states  in  the  North- 
West  and  the  Punjab,  two-thirds  of  whose  total  area  had  been 
brought  under  cultivation.  His  views  have  not  yet  been  carried  out, 
but  the  papers  in  which  he  urges  them  have  great  weight,  and  the 
balance  of  skilled  opinion  in  India  has  more  than  once  tended  in 
the  direction  in  which  they  point.  In  Bengal  it  seems  likely  that 
before  long  a  heroic  remedy  will  be  applied  to  evils  which  we 
have  ourselves  created.  And  thus  an  object  which  was  above  all 
others  dear  to  Sir  John  Lawrence's  heart,  will  be  attained  ;  for  the 
Ryots  will  be  reinstated  in  a  position  which  is  theirs  by  right, 
and  which  they  occupied  from  time  immemorial  under  their  native 
rulers. 

Other  subjects  on  which  Sir  John  Lawrence's  letters  show  that 
he  busied  himself  during  these  summer  months  at  Simla,  and  which 
he  treats  with  a  similar  breadth  of  view,  were  the  condition  of 
Kattywar  with  its  numerous  independent  chiefs  and  its  time-hon- 
oured abuses  ;  the  reduction  of  the  number  of  English  troops  in 
India,  so  far  as  it  could  be  done  with  a  due  regard  to  safety  ;  the 
increase  of  the  pay  of  the  native  troops  ;  the  great  '  rent  dispute ' 
in  Bengal ;  and  the  *  succession  question  '  in  Mysore,  of  which 
more  hereafter  ;  the  misgovernment  of  Bahawulpore  ;  the  merits 
and  demerits  of  the  income  tax,  then  and  long  afterwards  a  burning 


37-  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1S64 

question.     But  into  his  views  on  these  and  similar  subjects  space 
forbids  my  entering. 

The  interest  which  Queen  Victoria  feels  and  has  always  felt  in 
the  greatest  dependency  of  her  Empire  had  been  forcibly  impressed 
on  Sir  John  Lawrence  in  a  farewell  interview  which  had  taken  plafce 
between  them  just  before  he  started  for  India,  as  her  representative 
and  Viceroy.  The  Queen,  so  lie  told  the  chiefs  assembled  in  the 
great  Durbar  at  Lahore  to  be  described  in  the  next  chapter,  had 
*  warmly  enjoined  upon  him  the  duty  of  caring  for  all  her  subjects 
in  the  East.'  And  this  interest,  or  rather  this  maternal  solicitude, 
was  brought  before  him  in  an  equally  forcible  manner  by  the  letters 
from  the  Queen  which  reached  him  from  time  to  time  throughout 
the  period  of  his  Viceroyalty.  Her  first  letter  has  a  pathos  which  is 
all  its  own,  and  may  be  illustrated  by  what  I  have  already  said  of 
the  interest  which  Prince  Albert  had  always  taken  in  India,  and 
the  opinion  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  formed  respecting  him. 

Osborne  :  July  26,  1864. 
The  Queen  ought  and  meant,  long  ere  this,  to  have  acknowledged  Sir 
John  Lawrence's  letter  of  January  21,  with  very  satisfactory  accounts  of 
the  state  of  her  great  Indian  Empire.  She  regrets  that  he  has  not  writ- 
ten again,  but  hopes  to  hear  soon  from  him  an  account  of  the  different 
places  he  has  visited  and  the  state  of  the  people  and  the  country.  Sir 
John  will,  she  trusts,  everywhere  express  the  deep  interest  the  Queen 
takes  in  the  welfare  of  her  Indian  subjects,  and  how  doubly  she  feels  this 
interest,  as  her  beloved  great  husband  took  so  very  deep  an  interest  in 
India,  and  was  constantly  occupied  with  everything-  which  could  lead  to 
the  development  of  the  resources  of  that  great  Empire,  and  to  the  pros- 
perity and  kind  and  just  treatment  of  the  natives.  The  Queen  feels  this 
a  sacred  legacy,  and  wishes  that  her  dear  husband's  great  name  should 
ever  be  looked  upon  with  love  by  her  Indian  subjects.  The  Queen  con- 
cludes with  every  wish  for  Sir  John  Lawrence's  good  health  and  pros- 
perity. 

With  the  majority  of  the  members  of  his  Council  and  with  nearly 
all  his  Lieutenant-Governors  and  Chief  Commissioners,  Sir  John 
Lawrence  found  that  he  was  able  to  work  admirably.  The  chief 
exceptions  to  the  general  harmony  were  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
Sir  Hugh  Rose,  and  the  Governor  of  Bombay,  Sir  Bartle  Frere. 
For  each  of  these  remarkable  men  he  had  much  respect ;  while 
towards  Sir  Bartle  Frere  he  also  cherished  a  strong  feeling  of  grati- 
tude for  the  unstinted  help  which  he  had  given  him  in  the  Mutiny. 
But  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the  three  men  were  so  marked  that  there 
could  not  fail  to  be  much  official  friction  between  them,  lasting,  in 


l864         JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY   OF    INDIA.  373 

the  case  of  Sir  Hugh  Rose,  till  March,  1865,  when  he  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Sir  William  Mansfield  ;  in  the  case  of  Sir  Bartle  Frere  till 
March,  1867,  when  he  bade  a  final  farewell  to  India,  after  thirty 
years  of  hard  work,  in  which,  whatever  his  faults — and  they  were 
faults  which  were  destined  to  be  brought  more  prominently  before 
the  world  in  other  continents — he  had  managed  to  attach  all  classes 
to  himself,  and  had  done  brilliant  service  to  the  State  alike  in  the 
Deccan  and  in  Sattara,  in  Scinde,  at  Calcutta,  and  at  Bombay. 

In  a  country  like  India  it  is  difficult,  under  the  best  of  circum- 
stances,— human  nature  being  what  it  is, — for  the  Governor-General 
and  Commander-in-Chief  to  pull  well  together.  It  is  impossible, 
unless  there  be  an  extraordinary  amount  of  forbearance,  tact,  and 
good  sense  on  both  sides.  The  discipline  of  the  army  is  the  proper 
function  of  the  Commander-in-Chief,  and  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
in  all  questions  relating  to  its  distribution,  its  pay,  and  a  hundred 
other  matters  in  which  he  is  deeply  interested,  that  the  Civil  Gov- 
ernor and  not  the  Commander-in-Chief  should  be  supreme.  But  it 
has  often  happened  that  the  Commander-in-Chief  has  failed  to 
recognise  this  fundamental  condition  of  his  existence.  He  resents 
as  encroachments  on  the  part  of  the  civil  power  a  control  which  is 
essential  to  its  very  existence  ;  a  control,  without  which  India 
would  be  subject  to  a  military  despotism  such  as  is  not  tolerated  in 
the  most  despotic  country  in  the  world,  not  even  in  Russia.  Hence 
the  strained  relations  which  have  not  unfrequently  existed  between 
Governors-General  and  Commanders-in-Chief  in  India,  and  which, 
owing  to  the  strong  characters  of  the  two  men,  were  brought  into 
special  prominence  in  the  case  of  Lord  Dalhousie  and  Sir  Charles 
Napier.  No  sketch  of  the  Viceroyalty  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  would 
be  complete  if  it  contained  no  allusion  to  the  somewhat  similar 
antagonism  between  him  and  Sir  Hugh  Rose,  and  on  this  subject  I 
propose,  as  I  have  done  in  the  case  of  similar  difficulties  in  the 
Punjab,  to  let  Sir  John  Lawrence  speak  for  himself.  It  will  be 
remembered  throughout  that  the  Imperial  finances  were  in  an  un- 
satisfactory condition,  evidently  tending  towards  the  deficit  which, 
in  spite  of  all  Sir  John  Lawrence's  efforts,  marked  two  out  of  his 
five  years  of  office.  The  necessity  for  economy  therefore  could  not 
but  be  recognised  as  imperative  by  the  man  who  was  at  the  helm, 
and  who  saw  clearly  that  the  country  could  not  stand  any  increase 
of  taxation. 

To  Sir  Charles  Wood  he  writes  in  July,  1864  : — 

I  find  that  I  have  a  most  difficult  part  to  play  with  Sir  IIiij;]!  Rose. 
He  is  by  no  means  a  good  man  of  business,  and  brings   up  cases  time 


374  LIFE  OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

after  time,  after  tliey  have  been  settled,  and  the  discussions  and  delays 
are  endless.  He  wants  to  give  up  Delhi  and  Lahore  as  cantonments  for 
troops,  both  of  which  propositions  are  out  of  the  question.  I  wish  to 
make  no  alterations  in  the  present  distribution  of  troops  which  are  not 
absolutely  necessary  on  sanitary  grounds,  and  none,  where  from  political 
considerations,  troops  are  required;  while  I  would  reduce  them  at  un- 
healthy stations  to  the  fewest  number  practicable  ;  and  even  if  we  work 
on  these  principles,  the  expense  will  be  very  large.  Sir  Hugh  Rose,  also, 
wants  to  place  whole  regiments  of  Infantry  in  the  Hills.  .  .  .  You  will 
see  in  the  Commander-in-Chiefs  first  Minute  an  illustration  of  his  Excel- 
lency's mode  of  doing  business.  He  ranges  over  almost  every  depart- 
ment of  administration,  and  makes  attacks,  without  full  knowledge,  at 
his  pleasure.  This  is  his  mode  of  working  also  in  Council.  Our  discus- 
sions are,  beyond  measure,  tedious  and  protracted.  We  have  to  go  over 
and  over  the  same  details  and  arrangements.  .   .  . 

On  another  occasion,  he  writes  as  follows : — 

We  are  backward  in  all  our  military  cantonments,  partly,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  uncertainty  whether  many  of  them  should  be  kept  or  not, 
and,  partly,  from  the  difference  of  opinion  regarding  the  best  style  of 
buildings  for  barracks  for  the  English  soldier.  .  .  .  Up  to  this  day, 
though  we  are  in  the  seventh  year  after  the  Mutiny,  no  one  place  of  refuge 
for  the  security  of  women  and  children,  and  treasure  and  munitions  ot 
war  has  been  constructed.  And  so  years  may  go  by  until  another  con- 
vulsion overtakes  us,  unless  we  can  expedite  matters.  Sir  Hugh  Rose 
has  run  over  the  country  and  seen  many  places  and  with  the  best  inten- 
tions, but  is  too  much  for  change  without  duly  weighing  all  the  consid- 
erations of  a  case.  Thus  he  was  for  giving  up  Gwalior,  and  placing  the 
troops  at  Sipri,  seventy  or  eighty  miles  south  ;  then  at  a  place  still  fur- 
ther south.  Now  Gwalior  is  hot,  but  so  are  all  the  stations  in  Hindu- 
stan that  are  not  in  the  Hills.  ...  At  present  Sir  Hugh  Rose  is  making 
a  dead  set  against  Delhi.  But  the  worst  of  the  matter  is  that  when  he 
differs  there  is  great  difficulty  in  disposing  of  the  matter.  He  does  not 
join  issue  and  fight  out  the  case  and  then  let  it  alone,  but  he  comes  back, 
over  and  over  again,  to  the  charge,  and  so  there  is  no  bringing  it  to  a 
conclusion  and  going  on  with  the  work.  But  if  we  delay,  the  barracks 
are  not  built,  and  so  we  lay  ourselves  open  to  further  animadversions. 
Thus  it  is  very  up-hill  work  trying  to  keep  the  peace  and  at  the  same 
time  to  do  one's  duty. 

The  following  letter  refers  to  a  remedy  which  had  been  suggested 
by  Sir  Charles  Wood  for  the  friction  between  the  Governor-General 
and  the  Commander-in-Chief,  and  to  another  which  Sir  John  Law- 
rence would  himself  prefer.  It  is  biographically  interesting  also, 
from  his  description  of  the  difficulties  which  beset  the  Governor- 
General, 


i864  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  375 

I  certainly  see  and  feel  that  Sir  Hugh  Rose  and  I  do  not  get  on  well 
together.  1  fully  admit  that  there  is  and  has  been  more  or  less  antago- 
nism between  the  Governor-General  of  the  day  and  the  Commander-in- 
Chief.  I  see  the  probability  of  great  mischief  and  inconvenience  arising 
in  consequence  of  this  state  of  things,  but  .1  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  do 
not  think  that  the  changes  you  propose  will  mend  matters.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  appears  to  me  that  they  will  greatly  aggravate  them.  By  your 
plan,  the  Queen's  officer,  who  would  be  sent  out  to  India,  would  be  War 
Minister  and  Commander-in-Chief.  He  would  thus  have  all  the  power, 
all  the  prestige,  all  the  influence  attached  to  the  present  office  of  Com- 
mander-in-Chief added  to  that  which  the  War  Minister  as  member  of 
Council  would  possess.  He  would  work  and  influence  all  the  details  of 
any  important  military  question  as  Commander-in-Chief,  and  then  carry 
it  through  or  report  it  home,  as  member  of  Council  working  the  military 
department.  He  would  be  Sir  Hugh  Rose  and  Sir  Robert  Napier  to- 
gether. I  don't  see,  for  instance,  how  we  could  send  a  despatch  home 
which  was  not  in  accordance  with  his  views.  In  a  word,  by  the  com- 
bination of  the  two  powers  the  authority  of  the  military  element  would 
overshadow  and  paralyse  that  of  the  civil  power.  As  Commander-in- 
Chief,  the  War  Minister  would  have  the  same  Staff  to  enable  him  to 
carry  on  the  struggle  with  the  Governor-General  whenever  his  views 
were  not  admitted. 

My  remedy  for  the  present  state  of  things  is  that,  in  the  first  place,  the 
Commander-in-Chief  should  not  have  a  seat  in  Council.  He  should  be 
a  high  executive  officer,  distinctly  subordinate  to  the  Governor-General 
in  Council.  His  views  and  arguments  would  then  all,  as  circumstances 
dictated,  be  put  on  record  and  would  go  home  bearing  the  authority  and 
inlluence  which  they  deserved  and  no  more.  In  the  meantime  he  would 
be  required  to  obey  the  orders  he  might  receive.  I  see  no  other  change 
which  would  prove  beneficial.  We  must,  I  presume,  have  a  Commander- 
in-Chief  in  India.  A  War  Minister  alone  would  not  be  thought  suffi- 
cient. If  it  would,  I  would  be  willing  to  try  the  plan.  But  then  he 
should  be  like  any  other  member  of  Council,  with  no  Staff  and  no  Secre- 
tariat but  that  of  the  Government  of  India.  Whether  the  present  system, 
or  a  modification,  such  as  I  have  just  indicated,  be  introduced,  much 
must  depend  on  the  officer  who  is  sent  out.  He  should  be  eminently  a 
reasonable  man  ;  one  who  could  see  and  admit  that  military  arrange- 
ments must  be  subject  to  modification  in  reference  to  civil  and  political 
considerations.  Such  a  man,  for  instance,  as  Sir  Henry  Ilardinge  is 
the  officer  I  should  like  to  see  in  India. 

You  attached,  I  recollect,  great  weight  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  and 
the  Governor-General  constantly  coming  together  face  to  face,  sitting  in 
the  same  Council  and  discussing  the  same  subjects  ;  and  in  your  letter 
you  allude  to  the  evils  which  arise  from  the  converse  state  of  things. 
But  I  assure  you  that  no  real  benefit  would  arise  from  the  above  circum- 
stances. When  two  authorities  difR-r  in  their  views  I  am  inclined  to  be- 
lieve that  they  will  work  better  when  at  a  distance  than  when  they  are 


nd  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

together,  as  less  inilalion  is  likely  to  arise.  Sir  Hugh  Rose  and  I  were 
five  months  togetiier  at  Simla.  But  I  did  not  perceive  that  any  benefit 
thus  arose.  I  am  sure  tiiat  it  was  with  a  sense  of  great  relief  on  my 
part  that  I  left  him  at  Simla.  During  the  whole  time  that  he  and  Lord 
Elgin  were  there  together  I  understand  that  they  only  met  once  to  dis- 
cuss public  matters,  and  then  Colonel  Norman  was  present.  Sir  Hugh 
and  1  met  on  several  occasions  to  discuss  such  matters  and  try  and  rec- 
oncile our  different  opinions.  But  it  was  quite  in  vain.  The  time  and 
labour  whicii  were  wasted  in  some  of  our  councils  at  Simla  when  m.ili- 
tary  matters  were  discussed,  was  something  quite  excessive.  We  always 
met  at  eleven  o'clock,  and  seldom,  if  ever,  broke  up  before  five,  and  some- 
times our  sittings  were  extended  to  7  P.M.  If  every  Councillor  had  been 
as  pertinacious  as  Sir  Hugh  Rose,  the  work  of  the  State  woilld  soon  have 
come  to  a  dead  lock.  If  any  dangers  arise,  such  a  state  of  affairs  must 
prove  most  serious. 

It  should  be  a  rule  which  the  Commander-in-Chief  is  bound  to  recog- 
nise, that  a  question,  once  decided,  should  not  again  be  raised  without 
the  consent  of  the  Governor-General,  and  that  after  a  point  had  once 
been  fairly  discussed  disputation  should  cease.  I  have  paid  much  defer- 
ence, personally,  to  Sir  Hugh  Rose.  I  have  listened  to  all  that  he  had  to 
say,  and  I  have  usually  had  the  great  majority  of  the  Council  with  me.  In 
fact,  I  have  never  been  in  the  minority  w-ithout  giving  up  my  opinion, 
even  though  1  retained  it,  except  on  two  occasions,  one  being  against 
pulling  down  the  walls  of  Delhi  ;  the  other,  that  of  destroying  a  Mosque. 
And  in  the  latter  case,  after  visiting  the  spot,  I  also  consented  to  its  re- 
moval. I  myself  cannot  see  how  it  is  possible  that  I  can  influence  a 
Commander-in-Chief  of  strong  views  who  is  fully  satisfied  that  he  is  in 
the  right.  I  do  not  select  him,  nor  have  I  any  voice  in  his  selection.  He 
has  nothing  to  hope  or  fear  from  me.  He  has  been  brought  up  in  a  per- 
fectly different  school.  He  has  little  sympathy  with  my  feelings  and 
thoughts.  He,  as  a  rule,  does  not  see  the  difficulties  and  dangers  which 
are  apparent  to  me.  In  what  mode,  then,  am  I  to  work  .''  The  Governor- 
General,  nowadays,  has  no  bed  of  roses,  I  can  assure  you.  He  is  beset 
by  difficulties  on  every  side.  The  unofficial  classes  have  no  sympathy 
with  him.  Many  of  the  civilians  are  discontented.  His  patronage  is 
nearly  all  gone.'  That  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  is  very  great,  with 
all  the  advantage  of  belonging  to  and  being  supported  by  a  powerful 
profession.  Why  the  Governor-General  cannot  even  recommend  an 
officer  for  the  honours  which  he  may  think  are  fairly  due  without  the  con- 
currence of  the  Commander-in-Chief!  What,  then,  has  he  to  support 
him  ?  Only  the  sense  of  honour  and  duty  in  his  Councillors,  and  public 
opinion,  whicii,  in  this  country,  is  perhaps  more  uncertain  than  in  Eng- 
land. 

The  allusion  in  the  above  letter  to  his  preserving  the  walls  of 

*  Up  to  1854  the  Governor-General  had  been  also  Governor  of  Bengal,  and 
had  enjoyed  all  the  patronage  of  the  Lower  Provinces. 


i864         JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  377 

Delhi,  I  am  fortunately  able  to  explain  by  a  most  characteristic 
anecdote  told  me  by  Sir  John  Strachey.  After  relating  how  Law- 
rence had  saved  the  great  monuments  of  the  Mogul  Empire  and  of 
Mohammedan  art,  the  Jumma  Musjid  and  the  Palace,  not  to  speak 
of  the  city  of  Delhi  itself,  from  the  insane  fury  of  those  who  would 
have  liked  to  destroy  them  after  they  fell  into  our  hands,  he  thus 
continues  : 

I  remember  another  occasion,  which  occurred  when  Sir  John  Law- 
rence was  Viceroy,  and  when  I  was  with  him  at  Simla,  in  which  he  pre- 
vented another  atrocious  act  of  Vandalism.  The  fortress  and  palace  of 
Delhi  are  surrounded  by  a  huge  batUemented  wall,  pierced  by  gate- 
ways, which,  as  Bishop  Heber  says,  are  as  big  as  great  cathedrals,  and 
altogether  form  a  most  magnificent  architectural  object.  The  garrison 
was  very  unhealthy,  and  some  wise  doctors,  backed  up  by  the  military 
authorities,  proposed  and  most  strongly  urged  that  I  forget  how  many 
feet  should  be  cutoff  from  the  top  of  the  great  wall.  '  Thus,'  it  was  said, 
'  the  troops  will  get  the  circulation  of  air  that  they  now  want,  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  their  health  will  be  immensely  improved.'  The 
result  would  have  been  the  complete  ruin  of  one  of  the  finest  architectural 
and  antiquarian  objects  in  India.  Lord  Lawrence  knew  the  way  of  deal- 
ing with  medical  theories.  He  referred  the  question  to  other  high 
medical  authorities,  and  with  the  consequence  that  might  have  been  an- 
ticipated. They  reported  that  the  high  wall,  instead  of  being  a  cause  of 
harm,  was  the  most  efficient  and  only  protection  of  the  troops  from  the 
malaria  which  prevailed  outside,  and  that  of  all  ruinous  plans  that  could 
be  adopted  its  destruction  would  be  the  worst.  I  remember  Lord  Law- 
rence's intense  amusement  at  this.  But  even  if  the  second  batch  of 
doctors  had  reported  differently,  he  would  never  have  given  his  consent. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  these  stories  show  that  he  had  really  a  love 
of  art,  for  I  do  not  think  his  action  was  prompted  by  considerations  of 
that  kind,  but  they  illustrate  his  strong  good  sense  and  his  wise  instincts. 
They  illustrate  also  what  was  at  all  times  a  strong  feeling  with  him,  his 
affection  for  Delhi,  which  he  had  known  so  well  in  the  earlier  part  of  his 
life. 

In  the  case  of  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  the  feeling  of  official  antagonism 
was  even  more  pronounced  than  in  that  of  Sir  Hugh  Rose.  It 
lasted  longer,  and  the  position  of  Frere  as  Governor  of  Bombay 
gave  him  facilities  for  carrying  out  his  views  and  for  thwarting  the 
Supreme  Government  which  were  not  possessed  by  the  Commander- 
in-Chief.  Sir  John  Lawrence  and  Sir  Bartle  Frere  were,  as  I  have 
already  pointed  out,  as  different  from  each  other  in  character,  in 
business  habits,  and  in  general  views,  as  two  very  able,  very  pub- 
lic spirited,  very  self-reliant,  and  very  strong-willed  men  can  well 
be.     Sir  John   Lawrence  was   for  a  careful  economy  of  the  public 


378  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864 

money  ;  Sir  Bartle  Frere  for  a  liberal  expenditure  of  it  in  all  direc- 
tions. The  first  and  almost  the  only  question  which  suggested  itself 
to  Sir  Bartle  Frere  when  some  magnificent  public  work,  such  as  a 
land  reclamation  scheme,  or  the  practical  rebuilding  of  Bombay, 
came  under  consideration,  was  whether  the  work  was  good  and 
worthy  in  itself.  The  first  question  asked  by  Sir  John  Lawrence 
was  whether  India  could  afford  it,  and  if  it  could,  whether  it  was 
worth  the  additional  taxation.  Sir  John  Lawrence  thought  he  was 
bound  to  be  just  before  he  was  generous  and  to  look  before  he 
leaped.  Sir  Bartle  Frere  too  often  leaped  before  he  looked ;  and 
sometimes  it  may  have  been  to  the  advantage  of  India  that  he  did 
so.  But  he  also  found  that  his  undeniably  great  works  left  him 
with  an  exhausted  treasury,  and  sent  him  to  beg  as  a  favour  from 
the  Government  of  India,  what  if  he  had  been  content  to  keep  to 
rules,  he  might  have  been  able  to  demand  almost  as  a  right.  Sir 
John  Lawrence  was  always  for  a  minute  investigation  and  specifica- 
tion of  details,  because  he  felt  that  such  precautions  were  the  only 
security  for  due  economy  in  the  whole.  Sir  Bartle  Frere  thought 
all  such  precautions  vexatious  in  the  extreme,  and  for  very  much 
the  same  reason.  Sir  John  Lawrence,  very  possibly,  cared  for  pop- 
ularity too  little  ;  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  very  possibly,  too  much.  Sir 
John  Lawrence  was  blunt  and  downright  to  a  fault,  Sir  Bartle  Frere 
erred  equally  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  man  who  applied  to 
Sir  John  Lawrence  for  an  appointment  for  which  he  was  not  fit,  and 
met  with  a  curt  refusal,  very  probably,  as  he  came  down  the  steps 
of  Government  House,  called  the  Governor-General  a  bear  ;  but 
after  a  little  reflection  was  not  sorry  that  he  had  been  told  the  worst 
at  once,  and  admitted  the  integrity  of  his  chief's  motives.  The  man 
who  applied,  under  similar  circumstances,  to  Sir  Bartle  Frere  came 
down  from 'the  land  of  promise,' as  Government  House  in  Bombay 
was  not  inaptly  called,  charmed  with  the  courtesy  and  grace  of  his 
reception,  and  thinking  that  his  suit  was  granted  ;  but,  when  he 
found  a  few  days  later  that  the  place  was  given  to  another  candi- 
date, he  was  apt  to  turn  round  upon  his  Chief,  and  put  him  down 
in  his  vexation  as  a  hypocrite.  In  the  one  case  hopes  may  have 
been  unduly  raised.  In  the  other  they  may  have  been  too  rudely 
crushed.  But  in  each  case  so  public  spirited  were  both  men,  that, 
after  a  short  interval,  the  applicants  were  generally  able  to  admit 
that  the  refusal  was  due  to  one  and  the  same  motive,  the  paramount 
claims  of  the  public  service.  Sir  Bartle  Frere  was  for  extending 
our  influence  by  every  means  among  the  wild  tribes  which  encircled 
our  North  and  North-Western  frontiers.      Sir  John  Lawrence  was 


i864        JOHN    LAWRENCE    AS    VICEROY    OF    INDIA.  379 

for  confining  our  attention  as  far  as  possible  to  what  lay  within 
them.  '  Make  your  influence  paramount,'  so  said  in  effect  Sir  Bar- 
tie  Frere,  'at  Quetta,  at  Khelat,  at  Candahar,  and  at  Cabul,  in  order 
that  you  may  checkmate  Russia  there,  and  may  thereby  and  there- 
after secure  the  peace,  and  prosperity,  and  contentment  of  India.' 
'Make  India,'  replied  Sir  John  Lawrence,  'as  it  is  in  your  power  to 
do,  peaceful,  prosperous,  and  contented  first.  Assure  the  neigh- 
bouring tribes  that  you  do  not  covet  their  territory  and  will  not 
meddle  with  their  independence,  and  then  when  Russia  comes, — if 
ever  she  does  come, — with  hostile  intention,  they  will  be  to  you  as 
a  wall  of  adamant  against  her,  and  you  will  be  able  to  enter  their 
territories,  not  as  their  enemies,  but  as  their  allies  and  friends.' 
That  there  was  very  much  that  was  ifoble  and  very  little  to  con- 
demn, in  two  such  essentially  different  types  of  character,  would 
hardly  need  to  be  pointed  out  here,  were  it  not  that  each  has  had  a 
band  of  devoted  and  thorough-going  followers  ;  that  each  has  come 
to  be  regarded  as  the  spokesman  of  a  school ;  and  that,  as  I  have 
found  to  my  cost,  there  are  some  admirers  of  Sir  Bartle  Frere  who 
will  see  little  that  is  good  in  Sir  John  Lawrence,  and  there  are  many 
admirers  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  who,  judging  chiefly  by  the  light  of 
recent  occurrences,  will  see  little  to  admire  in  Sir  Bartle  Frere. 
That  it  was  well  for  India  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  held  the  su- 
preme, and  Sir  Bartle  Frere  the  subordinate  position,  will  not  be 
questioned  by  those  who  believe,  in  spite  of  his  disclaimers,  that 
the  miserable  Afghan  wars  in  one  continent,  and  the  equally  miser- 
able Zulu  war  in  another,  are  the  direct  and  legitimate  consequence 
of  the  principles  and  proclivities  of  the  Governor  of  Bombay.  But, 
whatever  the  limitations,  or  defects,  or  faults  of  the  chief  champions 
of  the  '  forward  '  and  '  backward '  schools,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
each  has  done,  in  his  way,  a  noble  work  in  India,  that  each  has  been 
actuated  by  high  motives,  and  that  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  if 
India  could  not  have  been  held  without  men  of  the  one  type,  it 
would  hardly  have  been  won  without  men  of  the  other. 

That  the  official  relations  between  two  such  men  could  not 
always  be  of  the  smoothest  is  self-evident.  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  as 
Governor  of  Bombay,  must  have  found  himself  in  opposition  to  any 
Governor-General  who  was  worthy  of  his  name.  The  financial 
quarrel  between  the  two  Governments  had  come  down  to  Sir  John 
Lawrence  as  a  legacy  from  Lord  Elgin.  Strict  budget  rules  had 
been  laid  down  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  which  were  as  binding 
on  the  Governor-General  himself,  as  on  those  who  came  next  below 
him.     Their  observance  was  essential,  if  the  financial  control  of  the 


38o  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864 

Supreme  Government  was  to  be  anything  but  a  name.  But  they 
were  systematically  ignored  by  Sir  Bartle  Frere.  He  liked  to  spend 
the  money  first,  and  explain  and  ask  for  an  indemnity  afterwards. 
He  took  the  bit  in  his  teeth,  as  he  has  done  on  some  notable  occa- 
sions since,  and  the  result  was  a  paper  warfare,  sometimes  carried 
on  with  the  Public  Works  Department  under  General  Richard 
Strachey,  sometimes  with  the  Governor-General  himself,  which 
might  easily  have  been  saved,  and  must  have  been  trying  enough  to 
all  concerned. 

The  correspondence  of  Sir  Bartle  Frere  with  the  Public  Works 
Department  was  often  irritating  enough  on  both  sides,  but  that  with 
the  Governor-General  was  carried  on  in  a  tone  and  temper  which 
does  credit  to  both,  and  left 'no  sting  behind.  It  is  clear,  in  fact, 
that  though  the  official  relations  between  the  two  men  were  often 
strained,  there  was,  at  bottom,  a  strong  feeling  of  mutual  regard 
and  respect.  It  only  remains  for  me  to  illustrate  what  I  have  said 
by  a  few  quotations  from  Sir  John  Lawrence's  letters  to  his  friends, 
and  to  Sir  Bartle  Frere  himself,  and  then  I  will  pass  on  to  a  more 
congenial  subject. 

I  am  glad  (says  Sir  John  to  the  Secretary  of  State  on  May  29)  that  you 
have  written  to  Frere.  I  like  my  own  way,  I  admit.  But  I  never  saw 
a  man  like  liim  for  taking  his  own  line.  But,  after  all,  he  is  a  very  able 
ofificer,  and  I  try  to  help  him  as  far  as  I  can.  He  has  no  patience  for 
budget  rules. 

July  16. 

As  regards  Bombay,  Frere  has  hitherto  resolved  to  have  his  own  way, 
and,  practically,  lias  had  it.  One  of  two  courses  should  be  adopted, 
either  th^a  he  was  made  to  obey  orders,  or  that  he  was  declared  abso- 
InfeLy  nis  own  master.     A  half-and-half  system  does  not  work  well. 

August  12. 
V/e  continue  to  have  frequent  little  collisions  with  the  Bombay  Gov- 
ernment, regarding  financial  or  executive  works,  which  I  would  gladly 
avoid.  But  it  is  not  possible  to  do  this  without  giving  up  that  control 
which,  by  rule,  we  are  bound  to  exercise.  I  am  perfectly  willing,  how- 
ever, to  yield  wherever  you  may  think  we  ought  to  do  so,  the  responsi- 
bility being  transferred  from  us  to  them.  ...  I  do  not  say  all  this  to 
put  you  against  Frere  ;  for,  in  spite  of  his  faults,  I  have  a  sincere  respect 
for  him. 

To  Willoughby,  who  was  one  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  greatest 
friends  on  the  Indian  Council  at  home,  and  to  whom,  while  he  was 
on  the  Council  himself,  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  venting  his 
grievances,  he  says  : — 


i864  JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS   VICEROY   OF    INDIA,  38 1 

I  find  it  rather  difficult  to  get  on  with  Frere,  though  I  am  most  anxious 
to  do  so.  He  is  bent  on  independence  without  its  responsibilities.  He 
insists  on  spending  not  only  his  own  revenues,  but  ours  also. 

Writing  to  Sir  Bartle  Frere  himself  on  April  13,  he  puts  matters 
between  them  thus,  and  the  magnanimity  of  its  tone  may  well  recall 
the  letters  which  he  had  written  in  earlier  days,  under  somewhat 
similar  circumstances,  to  Napier  or  Nicholson. 

Trevelyan  strongly  objects,  as  indeed  do  the  other  members  of  Council, 
to  your  using  Government  money  in  the  manner  you  describe,  especially 
without  authority  first  obtained.  What  they  say  is  that  if  you  can  do  it 
in  one  case,  you  can  do  it  in  another ;  if  you  can  advance  one  lakh  of 
rupees  you  may  advance  twenty  ;  and  that,  in  short,  there  can  be  no 
financial  control  under  such  a  system. 

Now  I  think  there  is  a  good  deal  of  force  in  what  is  said.  I  think  that, 
in  most  cases,  time  would  admit  of  a  previous  reference,  and  where  it 
did,  such  a  reference  would  greatly  facilitate  business  in  the  long  run, 
and,  of  course,  in  emergent  cases  you  could  telegraph.  I  have  myself 
no  jealousy  of  the  action  of  local  governments.  Indeed,  I  may  say  that, 
to  some  extent,  my  sympathies  are  with  them,  knowing  as  I  do  where 
the  shoe  used  to  pinch  in  former  days.  But  I  always  recognised  the  ad- 
vantage of  attending  to  rules  which  had  been  laid  down,  except  in  real 
emergencies.  We  had  a  case  only  yesterday  before  us  of  yours,  in  which 
you  appointed  a  pucca  (permanent)  judge — a  new  appointment — for 
Sattara,  off  your  own  bat,  and  did  not  even  report  it  for  a  whole  year  ! 
We  have  not  the  authority  to  make  new  appointments,  or  even  to  increase 
the  salaries  of  old  ones.  Surely  it  would  have  been  much  better  to  have 
made  a  '  reference'  previously  to  making  such  an  appointment.  We  are 
now  barely  able,  as  you  know,  to  make  the  income  balance  the  expen- 
diture. New  demands  are,  every  day,  coming  upon  us  ;  and  if  we  are 
to  meet  them,  we  must  economise  as  far  as  practicable  ;  and  this  we 
cannot  do  if  we  let  the  control  of  the  finances  slip  out  of  our  hands.  You 
may  depend  on  my  helping  you,  whenever  I  can  do  so  consistently  with 
my  duty. 

June  2. 

In  ordinary  times,  and  with  a  telegraphic  communication  complete,  by 
which  you  can  receive  a  reply  to  any  '  reference  '  in  a  few  hours,  we  do 
not  think  that  any  real  emergency  can  arise  which  should  require  action 
in  financial  matters  on  your  part.  We  all  think  that,  for  financial  con- 
trol, all  the  restrictions  laid  down  in  the  Budget  are  necessary;  and  that, 
within  those  rules,  there  is,  to  some  extent,  a  fair  liberty  of  action.  In 
the  particular  instances  which  you  adduce,  however,  it  seems  to  me  that 
you  would  have  found  no  real  difficulty  in  sitting  down  and  putting  the 
particular  points  Ijefore  the  Government  of  India,  who  would,  probably, 
then  have  agreed  to  your  wishes.  But  in  that  case,  it  would  have  been 
necessary  to  have  made  a  full  detail  of  the  circumstances,  for  unless  this 


382  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

be  done,  the  reference  is  really  of  no  use.  I  do  not  see  that  the  enforce- 
ment of  such  a  system  proves  an  absence  of  confidence  ;  it  simply  shows 
that  it  has  been  found  the  most  convenient  mode  of  doing  business.  I 
have  no  doubt  that,  in  no  one  case  in  which  you  expended  money  or 
proposed  to  spend  it  on  your  own  authority,  you  had  not  stronj:^  grounds 
for  so  doing.  But,  nevertheless,  this  mode  of  proceeding  may  prove 
very  embarrassing  to  the  Financial  Department  ;  and  there  is  one  great 
objection,  in  my  mind,  to  such  a  system,  namely,  that  when  once  a  man 
has  adopted  the  line  oi  acting  first  and  reporting  afterwards,  the  main 
inducement  to  report  and  explain  vanishes  away. 

Nor  do  I  see  why  the  limitations  of  authority  in  this  way  should  de- 
stroy, as  you  seem  to  think,  the  inclination  to  assume  responsibility  in 
times  of  real  emergency.  No  one  was  more  completely  tied  down,  in  this 
respect,  than  I  was  in  the  Punjab  up  to  1857.  But  when  the  time  came 
for  decision  and  accepting  the  responsibility  of  my  position,  I  found  no 
real  difficulty  in  doing  so.  And  so,  I  am  sure,  it  will  be  with  every 
officer  who  is  really  equal  to  the  emergencies  in  which  he  is  placed. 

As  regards  the  control  in  the  Executive  Works  Department,  which 
is  a  very  different  matter  from  that  of  the  finances,  I  have  no  desire  to 
advocate  more  than  a  general  supervision  or  criticism.  I  am  far  from 
afiirming  that  the  Government  of  India  may  not,  in  some  cases,  have 
gone  further  than  it  need  have  done.  But  I  think  that  in  the  particular 
cases  which  you  cite,  the  intention  was,  in  most  of  them,  to  agree  with 
your  Government,  subject  to  the  general  rules  of  the  Department.  .  .  . 
I  must  now  conclude,  and  will  only  add  that  I  hope  we  shall  be  able,  for 
the  future,  to  manage  matters  more  in  accordance  with  each  other's 
views.  I  have  not  the  power,  even  if  I  had  the  inclination,  to  alter  the 
Budget  system,  but  I  will  try,  as  far  as  I  can,  to  make  it  as  little  irk- 
some to  you  as  possible  ;  and,  as  regards  other  matters,  it  is  my  desire 
to  treat  you,  as  I  would  wish,  if  our  positions  were  reversed,  to  be  treated 
by  you.  I  know  your  worth  and  appreciate  your  great  merits,  and  have 
a  sincere  desire,  to  carry  on  work,  so  as  to  please  you  as  far  as  prac- 
ticable. 

November  2. 

.  .  .  I  now  come  to  the  other  points  of  your  letter,  and  if,  in  discussing 
them,  I  say  aught  which  may  not  be  agreeable  to  you,  you  must  forgive 
me.  I  would  very  much  rather  not  enter  on  them  at  all  ;  for  I  have  no 
hope  of  convincing  you  that  we,  on  this  side  of  India,  are  right,  while  I 
do  not  think  that  it  can  be  shown  that  we  are  wrong. 

You  have  more  than  once  complained  of  Colonel  Strachey's  mode  of 
writing  and  managing  the  Executive  Works  Department,  with  the  Bom- 
bay Government.  When  this  began,  I  took  care  to  look  over  the  drafts 
of  all  the  most  important  letters  which  were  subsequently  issued,  and  I 
asked  Taylor,  who  was  in  special  charge  of  the  work,  to  do  the  same. 
We  had  up  also  in  Council  some  of  the  letters  of  which  you  had  com- 
plained and  others  which  were  to  be  sent  out.  Now,  whatever  may  be 
the  real  merits  or  demerits  of  Strachey's  composition,  it  has,  since  the 


i864        JOHN    LAWRENCE   AS  VICEROY   OF   INDIA.  383 

time  I  speak  of  more  particularly,  had  the  full  sanction  of  the  Governor- 
General,  and  the  members  of  Council  individually  and  collectively. 
We  consider  that  no  more,  in  each  case,  has  been  said  than  the  oc- 
casion warranted,  and  that  the  style  and  tone  of  the  letters  have  not 
been  unduly  severe.  On  the  oiher  hand,  we  think  that  we  have  cause 
to  complain  of  your  Government  persistently  desiring  and  working  to 
set  aside  Budget  rules  ;  for  we  feel  certain  that  these  rules  are  the 
only  mode  of  ensuring  any  real  control  over  expenditure. 

You  complain  of  the  system  of  requiring  estimates  as  being  injurious 
and  objectionable.  But  surely  I  am  not  in  error  when  I  say  that  it  is 
my  impression  that  the  rules  under  which  the  Executive  Works  Depart- 
ment is  now  worked,  were  framed  while  you  were  yourself  a  member  of 
the  Council  of  India.  But  be  this  as  it  may,  I  am  persuaded  that  those 
rules  are  expedient  and  necessary,  however  irksome  they  may  appear. 
When  your  officers  will  not  obey  instructions,  what  can  be  done  but  in- 
sist on  their  being  carried  out  ?  All  the  correspondence  now,  in  which 
the  Government  of  India  and  that  of  Bombay  differ,  is  sent  home  as  soon 
as  possible,  and  we  shall  soon  see  what  is  thought  of  the  matter  in  each 
case.  I  am  sure  that  it  is  my  wish — indeed  I  may  say  it  is  that  of  the 
whole  Council — to  treat  you  and  your  Government  with  every  consider- 
ation. But  we  neither  can  nor  ought  to  give  up  the  control  which  has 
been  entrusted  to  us. 

I  finish  this  account  of  the  relations  between  Sir  John  Lawrence 
and  Sir  Bartle  Frere  with  a  single  sentence  which — though  there 
were  fresh  troubles  to  come,  connected  with  the  speculating  mania 
at  Bombay,  and  the  calamitous  failure  of  its  bank — expresses,  I 
have  reason  to  believe,  the  personal  feeling  of  the  Governor-General 
throughout,  and  will  leave  a  pleasant  recollection  behind.  '  I  attain 
congratulate  you  (says  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  Sir  Bartle  Frere  on 
February  12,  1866)  on  becoming  a  membjsr  of  the  Order  of  the 
Star  of  India.  We  could  scarcely  have  found  a  more  worthy  ad- 
dition to  the  brotherhood.' 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  GREAT  DURBAR  AT  LAHORE. 

October,    1864. 

There  is  one  short  week  in  the  Viceroyalty  of  Sir  John  Law- 
rence which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  stands  forth  almost  alone  in  its  in- 
terest and  its  significance  from  all  that  preceded  and  followed  it. 
The  great  Durbar  at  Lahore  must  have  been,  in  all  its  attendant  cir- 
cumstances, one  of  the  proudest  and  happiest  moments  of  his  life. 
The  pressing  cares  of  his  high  office  he  threw  off  for  the  time,  and 
he  surrendered  himself,  for  once,  without  reserve  and  without  re- 
morse, to  its  pleasures,  its  splendours,  and  its  rewards.  Surrounded 
by  some  of  his  best  and  earliest  friends,  men  who  had  worked  for 
him  and  with  him,  and  under  him  in  years  gone  by,  he  found  him- 
self, once  more,  in  the  Capital  of  his  old  province,  the  observed  of 
all  observers,  the  centre  of  a  glittering  throng  of  native  chiefs  and 
princes,  who  had  flocked  thither  from  the  borders  of  Thibet,  from 
the  snows  of  the  Himalayas,  from  the  wastes  of  the  Derajat,  from 
the  burning  plains  of  Mooltan,  from  the  bloodstained  palaces  of 
Delhi  ;  almost  all  of  them  known  to  him  personally  as  men  whom 
he  had  encouraged  or  rebuked,  conquered,  conciliated,  or  con- 
trolled, and  all  of  them,  without  any  exception  at  all,  stirred  by 
that  strange  mixture  of  sentiments,  now  of  love  and  now  of  fear, 
but  always  of  respect  and  awe,  which  seems  to  come  most  home  to 
the  Asiatic  breast,  and  warned  them  now,  in  tones  which  were  not 
to  be  mistaken,  that  if  any  one  of  them  still  harboured  any  hostile 
feelings  towards  the  British  rule,  the  present  was  not  the  time  to 
show  them. 

*  One  great  Durbar,'  it  has  been  said,  'is  very  like  another. 
When  you  have  seen  one  you  have  seen  all.'  And  it  is  true  enough 
that  there  is  much  the  same  ceremonial  in  them  all ;  the  same  bar- 
baric splendour,  the  same  kaleidoscopic  shifting  of  gorgeous  dresses 
and  priceless  jewels,  the  same  sights  and  sounds,  the  same  Babel  of 
languages,  the  same  tramp  of  horses,  the  same  trumpeting  of  elc- 


l864  THE   GREAT    DURBAR    AT    LAHORE.  385 

phants,  the  same  roll  of  drums,  the  same  roar  of  artillery.  There 
are  the  same  strange  contrasts  between  the  European  and  the 
Asiatic  ;  between  barbarism  and  civilisation.  But  if  we  look  a  little 
closer,  even  at  the  externals  of  this  Lahore  Durbar,  the  number  of 
the  princes  present,  the  extent  of  their  territory,  the  nature  of  their 
influence,  the  variety  of  the  homes  from  which  they  came  and  of 
the  races  which  they  represented,  we  shall  feel  that,  even  as  a  mere 
pageant,  it  transcended  every  spectacle  of  the  kind  which  had,  till 
then,  been  seen  in  India  ;  while,  if  we  go  deeper  still,  and  throw 
into  the  scale  those  sentiments  of  personal  awe  and  veneration, 
which  were  undoubtedly  felt  towards  its  central  figure,  we  shall 
feel  that  there  belonged  to  it  a  heartiness  and  a  significance  which 
is  not  to  be  found  in  any  other  Durbar  before  or  since.  No  one 
but  John  Lawrence,  not  even  Runjeet  Sing  himself,  could  have 
drawn  such  a  gathering  around  him  at  Lahore.  No  one  else  could 
have  been  regarded  with  the  feelings  with  which  the  assembled 
chiefs  regarded  him.  It  is  not  therefore  out  of  place  in  his  biog- 
raphy to  devote  one  short  chapter  to  a  spectacle  which  sums  up 
and  brings  to  a  focus  so  much  of  the  struggles  and  the  successes, 
the  hopes,  the  fears,  and  the  memories  of  his  eventful  life. 

For  many  days  before  the  arrival  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  at  the 
Capital  of  the  Punjab,  the  w'hole  province  had  been  astir.  The 
famous  jewellers  of  the  Chandni  Chouk  at  Delhi  had  packed  off 
their  glittering  stores  to  grace  the  Viceregal  pageant.  The  roads, 
not  least  the  Grand  Trunk  Road  itself,  had  been  blocked  by  the 
huge  trains  of  the  native  Princes,  who,  vieing  with  one  another  in 
their  magnificence,  were  lazily  hurrying  on  towards  their  destina- 
tion. The  solid  silver  howdahs,  and  the  fantastically  decorated 
doolies  ;  the  carriages  and  flags  ;  the  elephants  and  camels  ;  the 
horses,  mules,  and  bullocks ;  the  infantry  soldiers  armed  with 
shields  and  matchlocks  half  as  long  as  themselves,  and  the  troops 
of  cavalry  clad  in  chain  armour — altogether  formed  a  scene  of  ever 
varying  and  picturesque  confusion. 

On  October  13,  the  last  and  greatest  of  the  'independent'  or 
'protected'  Princes,  Runbeer  Sing,  Maharaja  of  Jummoo  and 
Kashmere,  attended  by  a  train  of  some  5,000  followers,  reached  the 
separate  camping  ground  for  which,  as  being  a  sovereign  Prince,  he 
had  stipulated,  in  the  great  plain  outside  the  city.  His  followers 
were  gorgeously  caparisoned.  But  his  own  dress  was  of  plain  white 
muslin,  '  ostentatious  in  its  simplicity,'  except  in  the  matter  of  his 
turban,  which  was  a  '  study  of  elegant  magnificence.'  It  was  of  pale 
blue  and  white  silk,  trimmed  with  gold  lace,  and  ornamented  with 
VOL.  II. — 25 


386  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864 

a  single  peacock's  feather  fastened  by  a  sparkling  jewel.  The 
ALiharaja  of  Puitiala  had  arrived  shortly  before  him  ;  and  now  all 
was  ready  for  the  Viceroy. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  had  left  Simla  a  few  days  previously,  and 
each  stage  of  his  progress  had  brought  him  amongst  more  and  more 
familiar  faces  and  scenes.  At  Umritsur,  he  was  greeted  by  Arthur 
Roberts,  who  had  been  Commissioner  at  Lahore  during  the  crisis 
of  the  Mutiny,  and  had  now  risen  to  be  Judicial  Commissioner  of 
the  Punjab  ;  by  Donald  Macleod,  who  was  still  its  Financial  Com- 
missioner, and  by  Sir  Robert  Montgomery,  who  was  its  Lieuten- 
ant-Governor. It  was  a  pleasant  meeting  of  old  friends,  and  if  any- 
one had  the  right  on  that  eventful  day  to  feel  almost  as  happy,  and 
almost  as  proud  as  the  Governor-General  himself,  it  must  have 
been  his  earliest  and  latest  friend,  the  man  who  was  so  worthily 
filling  his  post  as  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  Punjab,  and  was  now 
to  have  the  supreme  satisfaction  of  receiving  the  Viceroy  as  his 
guest,  the  ever  genial  and  ever  young  Sir  Robert  Montgomery. 

The  friends  of  the  Governor-General  saw  at  a  glance — they  never 
could  have  thought  otherwise — that  he  was  quite  unchanged  by  the 
change  in  his  condition.  '  He  wore,'  says  an  eyewitness,  '  the  same 
simple  dress.  There  was  the  same  vigorous  movement  of  his  limbs 
and  head,  and  the  same  determined  mode  of  expression,  enforced 
by  considerable  action.'  On  arriving  at  the  railway  station  at 
Lahore,  the  first  sod  of  which  he  had  himself  turned  as  he  left  India 
six  years  before,  he  found  that  the  whole  of  the  Durbaris  and  the 
whole  city  to  boot  had  turned  out  to  greet  him.  There  was  the 
young  Maharaja  of  Puttiala  'blazing  with  diamonds,'  and  the  young 
Maharaja  of  Jheend,  both  of  whom  received  a  warm  greeting,  in 
memory  of  the  timely  aid  rendered  to  him  and  to  England  by  their 
predecessors  during  the  Mutiny.  There  was  the  Maharaja  of  Kup- 
purthalla,  who  was  to  receive  from  his  hands,  a  day  or  two  hence, 
the  Order  of  the  Star  of  India,  in  recognition  of  his  distinguished 
services,  as  well  as  his  personal  worth.  While  outside  the  station, 
on  every  coign  of  vantage  and  under  the  shade  of  every  tree,  were 
gathered  crowds  of  natives,  all  hoping  to  hear  the  familiar  voice, 
or,  at  least,  to  get  a  distant  sight  of  the  familiar  form.  Not  many 
of  them  were  altogether  disappointed,  and  not  a  few  of  those  whom 
he  knew  and  recognized,  received  a  friendly  word  or  even  a  familiar 
pat  upon  the  back,  with  which  they  went  home  delighted. 

But  it  was  to  be  a  week  of  work  as  well  as  of  play  and  of  show. 
That  night.  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  entertained  at  a  State  dinner  at 
Government  House.     On  the  following  morning,  Saturday,  the  15th, 


i864  THE   GREAT    DURBAR   AT   LAHORE.  387 

there  was  a  levee  at  ten  o'clock,  and  then  a  private  Durbar  for  the 
great  chieftains,  each  of  whom  spent  a  quarter  of  an  hour  in  private 
conversation  with  the  Viceroy.  Nor  did  the  interview  consist  of  a 
mere  bandying  of  Oriental  compliments.  Sir  John  Lawrence  was 
no  good  hand  at  that.  There  was  an  earnest  and  genial  talk  about 
the  state  of  the  country  and  the  principality  of  each  Raja,  and  then 
a  few  words  of  encouragement  and  advice  for  the  future.  In  the 
afternoon,  an  entertainment  was  given  by  Sir  Robert  Montgomery 
in  the  famous  Shalimar  Gardens,  the  handiwork  of  that  master 
builder  of  the  East,  Shah  Jehan.  Few  cities  indeed  were  there  in 
the  North- West  of  India,  which  Shah  Jehan  had  not  touched  with  his 
enchanter's  wand  ;  and  there  was  no  city  which  he  touched  which 
he  did  not  also,  permanently,  adorn. 

Sunday,  the  i6th,  was  a  pleasant  breathing  space,  as  Sir  John 
Lawrence  and  his  school  in  the  Punjab  had  always  endeavoured  to 
arrange  that  it  should  be,  in  the  midst  of  work  or  of  festivity.  On 
Monday,  the  17th,  Sir  John  Lawrence  got  through  an  amount  of 
work  which  must  have  satisfied  even  his  insatiable  appetite  for  it. 
At  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  began  to  pay  his  return  visits  to 
the  chiefs.  After  breakfast,  he  held  a  discussion  of  some  four 
hours  with  the  chief  officials  on  some  great  engineering  works  which 
were  to  be  carried  out  at  Mooltan.  After  luncheon,  he  conversed 
with  the  teachers  and  the  students  of  the  Government  schools,  some 
800  in  number,  who  had  been  gathered  together  for  the  purpose ,; 
and  amongst  them  he  singled  out  for  special  notice  the  young  son 
of  Moolraj,  the  Dewan  of  Mooltan,  but  for  whose  rash  act  the  Pun- 
jab might  not  have  fallen  till  a  later  period,  and  just  possibly  might 
not  have  fallen  at  all  into  British  hands.  Later  on  in  the  afternoon, 
in  the  presence  of  a  brilliant  assemblage,  he  invested  the  Raja  of 
Kuppurthalla  with  the  Star  of  India.  His  speech  was  in  Hindustani, 
so  that  every  word  of  it  could  be  caught  by  the  assembled  chiefs. 
He  dwelt  on  his  personal  friendship  with  the  Raja's  father,  and  om 
the  distinguished  services  which,  as  none  knew  better  than  he,  had 
been  rendered  during  the  Mutiny  by  the  Raja  himself.  In  the 
evening,  the  '  Lawrence  Hall,'  a  building  erected  by  his  friends  to 
commemorate  his  services  in  the  Punjab,  and  bearing  on  its  front 
in  large  letters  the  simple  words,  '  John  Lawrence  ; '  was  formally 
opened  amidst  an  enthusiastic  assemblage.  The  chief  feature  of 
the  whole  ceremony  was  the  simple  and  hearty  eulogy  pronounced 
by  Montgomery  on  his  chief,  and  the  eqiially  simple  and  even  more 
touching  tribute  rendered  by  Sir  John  to  his  former  colleagues,  and, 
not  least,  to  the  mighty  dead.     There  were  tears  on  many  faces,  and 


388  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864 

at  one  point  in  his  speech,  which  will  easily  be  recognised,  the  Gov- 
ernor-General himself  almost  broke  down  with  emotion. 
Sir  Robert  Montgomery  said  :  — 

Gentlemen  and  Ladies, — I  esteem  it  a  high  honour  to  have  the  privilege 
of  proposing-  the  health  of  our  Viceroy  and  Governor-General,  Sir  Johu 
Lawrence.  I  have  known  him  for  upwards  of  five  and  forty  years.  We 
were  schoolfellows  together  in  Ireland,  as  were  also  his  distinguished 
brothers,  Henry  and  George  Lawrence.  (Cheers.)  We  separated  for 
many  years,  and  did  not  meet  again  until  the  annexation  of  the  Punjab, 
when  I  saw  that  the  strong  will  of  the  boy  had  ripened  into  the  deter- 
mined man.  Clear,  vigorous,  and  energetic,  just  and  impartial,  he  was 
feared  and  respected  by  all,  and  his  administration  became  a  model  for 
other  provinces.  (Cheers.)  It  was  in  the  Jullundhur  Doab  that  he  first 
began  his  Punjab  career.  He  was  selected  for  it  by  Lord  Hardinge,  and, 
subsequently,  was  called  to  Lahore,  and  eventually  became  Chief  Com- 
missioner. And  then  came  1857.  The  events  of  it  are  fresh  in  our 
memory.  The  Punjab,  under  his  grasp,  stood  firm.  Delhi  must  be 
regained  or  India  lost.  The  Punjab  was  cut  off  from  all  aid.  It  poured 
down,  at  his  bidding,  from  its  hills  and  plains  the  flower  of  its  native 
chivalry.  The  city  was  captured,  and  we  were  saved — aye,  India  was 
saved.  (Cheers.)  England  acknowledged  his  eminent  services,  and 
his  name  has  become  a  household  word  through  the  land.  (Loud  cheers.) 
And  we  who  have  served  with  him  and  under  him  are  proud  to  see  him 
occupying  and  adorning  the  most  important  post  under  the  Crown.  We 
are  here  to  welcome  him  this  day  in  a  hall  erected  to  his  memory  by  his 
Punjab  friends.  We  welcome  him  as  our  old  Chief  Commissioner,  our 
old  Lieutenant-Governor,  our  Viceroy.  (Cheers.)  I  call  on  you,  one  and 
all,  to  join  me  in  drinking  the  health  of  Sir  John  Lawrence.  (Loud  and 
prolonged  cheers.) 

Sir  John  Lawrence,  in  returning  thanks,  said  : — 

Sir  Robert  Montgomery,  Ladies,  and  Gentlemen, — I  thank  you,  Sir 
Robert,  for  the  kind  and  genial  way  in  which  you  have  proposed  my 
health,  and  you,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  for  the  handsome  and  cordial 
manner  in  which  you  have  responded  to  the  toast.  I  don't  think  I  quite 
deserved  all  that  Sir  Robert  has  said  of  me.  But  I  must  say  I  like  it 
(laughter  and  cheers).  It's  only  human  nature.  (Cheers.)  My  nature 
has  been  called  a  hard  one  ;  but,  believe  me,  it  softens  at  your  kindness. 
Sir  Robert  has  told  you  that  we  were  schoolfellows  forty  years  ago.  I 
wish  he  had  left  out  the  forty  years.  But  as  I  am  a  married  man  with 
nine  children,  it  doesn't  much  matter.  Well,  it  is  quite  true  that  we  were 
at  school  together  forty  years  ago  ;  at  a  place  very  famous  in  history, 
Londonderry  (cheers  and  laughter),  celebrated  for  defending  itself  against 
great  odds.  Well,  perhaps  some  of  the  old  north  Irish  blood  flowed  in 
our  veins,  for  we  came  from  that  part  ;  and  when  the  time  came  that,  in 


i864  THE   GREAT   DURBAR  AT   LAHORE.  389 

India,  we  found  ourselves  fighting  against  still  greater  odds,  the  blood 
of  the  old  defenders  of  Derry  warmed  within  us,  and,  like  old  war  horses, 
we  buckled  to  our  work.  (Cheers.)  But,  gentlemen,  I  think  that  what- 
ever I  may  have  done,  my  lieutenant,  Sir  Robert  Montgomery,  did 
almost  more.  (Cheers.)'  Gentlemen  and  ladies, — When  I  think  of  those 
terrible  days  I  hardly  know  whether  to  think  of  them  with  pride  or  with 
sorrow.  When  I  remember  the  glorious  deeds  of  our  army  before 
Delhi,  I  feel  proud  of  my  nation  and  my  countrymen — Irish,  English, 
and  Scotch.  But  when  I  think  of  the  genius  and  bravery  which  are 
buried  at  Delhi,  I  feel  that  our  triumph  was  indeed  dearly  bought. 
There  was  John  Nicholson.  I  think  of  him,  as  one  without  whom,  per- 
haps, not  even  Englishmen  would  ever  have  taken  Delhi.  I  can  hardly 
say  more.  (Cheers.)  But  this  I  will  say,  that  as  long  as  an  Englishman 
survives  in  India  the  name  of  John  Nicholson  will  never  be  forgotten. 
I  had  in  those  days  under  me  a  body  of  officers  in  the  Punjab  who  for 
zeal,  energy,  and  ability,  were  as  good  as  India  ever  has,  or  ever  will, 
produce.  If  we  were,  in  any  way,  an  example  to  the  rest  of  India,  we 
have  had  our  reward.  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  six  years  ago  I  left  this 
country  with  a  shattered  constitution,  after  many  years'  hard  work. 
But  I  left  it  in  the  hands  of  Sir  Robert  Montgomery.  My  mantle  could 
not  have  fallen  upon  better  shoulders.  And  when  I  look  around  me 
and  see  the  smiling,  happy  faces  of  a  contented  people,  and  the  material 
improvements  which  have  been  made  under  his  guidance,  it  sometimes 
seems  to  me  that  it  would  have  been  well  had  the  mantle  fallen  upon  him 
sooner.  (Cheers.)  It  has  given  me  the  greatest  pleasure  to  return  to 
the  Punjab.  I  have  been  much  pleased  with  what  I  have  seen,  and  I 
wish  I  had  time  to  go  over  the  whole  of  it.  It  has  given  me  much  pleas- 
ure to  meet  you  all  here  to-night.  Again  I  thank  you  for  the  kind  way 
in  which  you  have  received  me,  and  I  wish  you  all  health  and  happiness. 
(Loud  and  prolonged  cheers.) 

The  following  day,  the  i8th,  was  that  for  which  all  that  had  pre- 
ceded it  was  only  the  preparation.  On  that  day  the  Viceroy  was 
to  receive  in  Grand  Durbar  an  assemblage  of  princes  and  chiefs 
such  as  could  have  been  gathered  together  in  no  other  city,  and 
from  no  other  province  in  the  Empire.  Bombay  can  boast  of  an 
extraordinary  mixture  of  races  in  its  population  of  nearly  700,000 
souls.  But  in  the  vast  city  of  tents  which  had  been  pitched  out- 
side the  walls  of  Lahore,  there  were  some  80,000  armed  men,  the 
retainers  of  six  hundred  chieftains  of  every  variety  of  stature  and 
of  countenance,  of  garments,  of  colour,  and  of  language.  The 
Tower  of  Babel  or  the  Day  of  Pentecost  can  hardly  have  been  wit- 
nesses of  such  a  confusion  of  tongues  ;  and  Mithridatcs  himself, 
master  though  he  is  said  to  have  been  of  twenty-five  different  lan- 
guages, could  hardly  have  boasted,  had  he  been  ruler,  not  of  his 


390  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

own  Pontus  and  the  '  adjoining  mountain  of  languages,'  but  of  the 
Punjab  and  its  adjoining  mountain  ranges,  that  he  was  able  to 
transact  business  in  their  own  dialects  with  every  tribe  in  his  do- 
minions. There  were  huge  warriors  from  Peshawur  and  its  moun- 
tain crags,  who  would  have  laughed  to  scorn  a  summons  from 
Lahore,  had  it  come  to  them  from  Runjeet  Sing  himself.  There 
were  wild  and  unkempt  Hill-men  from  the  Suliman  Range,  who 
looked  as  though  they  would  be  willing  to  cut  the  throats  of  their 
dearest  friends  in  revenge  for  a  fancied  affront,  or  to  gain  some 
paltry  bit  of  plunder.  There  was  the  burly  Envoy  from  Cabul  and 
his  numerous  following.  There  were  Rajpoots  of  the  oldest  stock 
in  existence,  from  the  Kangra  Hills.  There  were  little  Ghoorkas 
from  the  frontier  of  Thibet.  There  were  wiry  Sikhs  from  Malwa 
and  the  Manjha,  some  of  them  the  very  men  who  had  shaken  our 
Empire  at  Ferozeshah  and  Chillianwallah,  and  had  then  done  much 
to  save  it  before  Delhi.  Finally,  there  were  ambassadors  from 
Khokand — a  city  hardly  as  yet  known  to  fame  even  among  the 
Sikhs  and  Afghans,  far  away  in  the  half-fabulous  regions  beyond 
the  Oxus — who  had  come,  not  for  the  first  time,  to  ask  for  English 
aid  against  the  *  great  White  Czar,'  who,  even  then,  seemed  to  be 
threatening  their  existence,  and  before  long  was  to  make  good  his 
threats,  in  his  unstaying  and  pitiless  advance  across  the  wilds  of 
Central  Asia. 

The  spot  chosen  for  the  Durbar  was  picturesque  and  impressive 
enough.  It  was  a  green  and  spacious  plain,  half  encircled  by  the 
Ravi ;  the  very  spot  on  which,  a  century  before,  Ahmed  Shah 
Durani  had  encamped,  and  on  which,  hardly  a  quarter  of  a  century 
before,  Runjeet  Sing  himself  had  repeatedly  reviewed,  in  the  mid 
career  of  his  conquests,  his  noble,  and,  till  then,  invincible  army. 
To  the  south  lay  the  city  of  Lahore,  almost  every  conspicuous  build- 
ing in  which  recalled  the  same  famous  name.  There  was  the  Mosque, 
with  its  marble  domes  and  minarets,  and  its  memories  of  the 
religious  hate  which  separates  Sikhs  from  Muslims.  There  was 
Runjeet's  fort.  There  was  Runjeet's  palace.  There  was  Runjeet's 
tomb.  Thus  most  of  the  historical  associations  of  the  place  clus- 
tered around  the  life  of  the '  Lion  of  the  Punjab.'  All  that  met  the 
eye,  on  the  other  hand,  told  of  the  greater  power  which  had  swept 
him  and  his  away,  and  for  good  or  evil,  had  taken  his  place.  His 
son  and  heir  was  now  a  private  English  gentleman,  living  by  choice 
in  a  Christian  country,  and  professing  the  Christian  religion.  His 
wife,  or  the  last  of  his  wives,  had  just  died  in  a  London  suburb, 
and  the  Koh-i-noor,  the  matchless  jewel  which  had  graced  Persian, 


i864  THE   GREAT    DURBAR    AT    LAHORE.  39I 

and  Afghan,  and  Sikh  sceptres,  had  passed  through  Sir  John  Law- 
rence's hands  and  pocket,  and  was  glittering,  six  thousand  miles 
away,  in  the  crown  of  the  English  Queen.  Was  it  for  evil  or  for 
good,  this  mighty  change  ;  and  all  that  had  come,  and  was  still  to 
come  from  it  ?  Here  was  food  enough  for  thought,  if  only  the 
dazzling  sights  which  met  the  eye  would  leave  any  space  for  re- 
flection. 

Every  chief  was  to  be  in  his  place  in  the  huge  canvas  Palace  by 
nine  o'clock  in  the  morning.  But  that  there  might  be  no  hitch  in 
the  arrangements,  the  Viceroy  was,  for  once  in  his  life,  intentionally 
late.  And  the  delay  of  half  an  hour,  while  it  helped  to  raise  ex- 
pectation to  the  tiptoe,  also  gave  time  to  note  the  brilliant  dresses, 
and  to  reflect  on  the  strange  histories  of  the  six  hundred  units,  who, 
each  in  his  measure,  went  to  make  up  the  gorgeous  whole.  There 
was  the  Raja  of  Jheend,  for  instance,  dressed  in  pure  white  muslin, 
glowing  with  emeralds  and  diamonds,  and  wearing  a  yellow  turban. 
There  was  the  Maharaja  of  Puttiala,  the  head  of  the  whole  Sikh 
race,  wearing  a  rich  lavender  dress,  which  was  almost  concealed  by 
emeralds  and  pearls.  There  was  the  Raja  of  Kuppurthalla,  deco- 
rated with  the  newly  won  insignia  of  the  Star  of  India.  There  was 
the  Raja  of  Faridkote,  clad,  from  head  to  foot,  in  the  true  Khalsa 
yellow. 

And  the  characters  and  careers  of  the  assembled  chieftains  were, 
to  the  view  of  those  who  had  any  knowledge  of  the  facts,  as  striking 
and  various  as  their  dress.  There  was  the  chief  of  the  Kutoch 
family  of  Kangra ;  a  discrowned  king  it  is  true,  but  belonging  to 
one  of  the  very  oldest  Rajpoot  families,  a  family  which  could  trace 
back — as  it  was  believed — its  genealogy  for  ten  thousand  years, 
through  four  hundred  and  eighty  generations,  and  every  one  of 
them  a  King !  There  were  the  two  high  priests  of  the  Sikh  race, 
both  descended  in  the  direct  line  from  the  Guru  Nanuk,  the  founder 
of  the  Sikh  religion.  There  was  the  Sikh  nobleman  who,  as  the 
best  rider  of  a  nation  of  horsemen,  had  himself  led  the  Cavalry 
charge  at  Chillian  wallah.  There  was  the  Persian  Kuzilbash,  who 
had  saved  the  lives  of  the  English  prisoners — several  ladies  and 
children  amongst  them — from  instant  death  in  the  disastrous  Afghan 
war.  There  was  Nihal  Sing  Chachi,  Sir  John  Lawrence's  trusted 
adviser  from  the  days  of  annexation  onwards.  There  was  Raja 
Sahib  Dyal,  at  that  moment  a  member  of  his  Legislative  Council. 
And,  as  might  be  expected,  there  were  to  be  seen  there  also  the 
extremes  of  youth  and  age,  of  bloated  sensuality  and  of  manly 
vigour  and  beauty.     There  was  the  young  Nawab  of  Lohara,  a  boy 


392  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864 

of  seven  years  old,  who  played  his  part  with  all  the  dignity  of  man- 
hood. There  was  the  Nawab  of  Dojana,  on  the  other  hand,  so 
huge  and  so  bloated  that  he  was  said  to  weigh  thirty  stone,  that 
the  walk  from  one  end  of  the  Durbar  tent  to  the  other  completely 
took  away  his  breath,  and  that  he  was  unable,  with  his  vast  circum- 
ference, to  take  his  seat  upon  the  chair  allotted  to  him  till  its  arms 
had  been  cut  away  !  Finally,  there  was  the  Raja  of  Faridkote,  who 
was  so  stricken  with  paralysis,  that  when  the  time  came  for  him  to 
be  presented  to  the  Viceroy,  he  had  to  be  carried  up  to  the  edge  of 
the  platform,  when  Sir  John  Lawrence,  to  save  him  the  fatigue  of 
being  carried  further,  stepped  down  from  his  throne,  and  walked  to 
the  edge  of  the  cloth  of  gold,  that  he  might  receive  him  there.  The 
Raja  might  well  have  excused  himself  from  obeying  the  invitation 
of  the  Viceroy  on  the  score  of  his  ill-health,  but,  like  many  others, 
he  was  determined,  as  an  eye-witness,'  to  whom  this  account  is 
much  indebted,  puts  it,  '  at  all  hazards,  to  see  the  great  Viceroy, 
whose  name  was  feared  and  loved  throughout  Upper  India.'  And 
so,  at  all  hazards,  he  came,  and  he  had  his  reward. 

At  last,  the  half-hour  of  suspense  was  over,  and  as  the  carriage 
and  four  of  the  Viceroy  drove  up  to  the  tent,  the  troops  who  lined 
the  road  presented  arms,  the  band  struck  up,  the  first  gun  of  a  royal 
salute  was  fired,  and  then  the  whole  assembly  of  chiefs  and  princes 
rose  to  their  feet  as  Sir  John  Lawrence,  with  all  his  orders  on  him, 
but  still  the  simplest  in  attire  of  all  present,  walked  up  the  tent, 
mounted  the  platform  covered  with  cloth  of  gold,  and  took  his  seat 
upon  the  throne.  On  his  right,  was  the  Maharaja  of  Cashmere,  and 
next  to  him  the  other  Princes  in  order  of  their  precedence.  On  his 
left,  were  Sir  Robert  Montgomery,  Sir  Henry  Maine,  Sir  Donald 
Macleod,  and  the  Commissioners  of  the  various  Divisions  of  the 
Punjab,  while  behind  the  throne  the  Deputy  and  Assistant  Commis- 
sioners and  other  officers  of  the  province  were  ranged  in  rows,  some 
three  hundred  in  number.  Had  Sir  John  Lawrence  flinched  or 
faltered  in  the  day  of  trial  seven  years  before,  had  he  been  for  a 
moment  other  than  himself,  how  many  of  that  brilliant  throng — so 
thought  not  a  few  amongst  them — would  not  have  been  alive  to 
take  a  part  in  that  moving  spectacle  !  As  the  booming  of  the  last 
gun  died  away,  the  Viceroy  rose,  and,  with  energy  and  clearness 
addressed  the  assembled  chiefs  in  Hindustani,  that  litigua  franca 
which  everybody  in  India  understands  or  ought  to  understand. 
His  words  were  simple  and  earnest.     They  came  straight  from  his 

'  Sir  Lepel  Griffin,  in  the  Lahore  Chronicle  for  October  20,  1864. 


1864  THE   GREAT    DURBAR    AT    LAHORE.  393 

heart,  and  made  their  way  straight  to  the  hearts  of  his  hearers. 
And  as  they  gazed  upon  his  commanding  form,  and  Hstened  to  his 
direct  and  manly  speech,  they  must  indeed  have  felt  that  the  com- 
bination in  him  of  muscular,  and  moral,  and  mental  power  was 
pretty  well  complete. 

Maharajas,  Rajas,  and  Chiefs  !  Listen  to  my  words.  I  have  come 
among  you  after  an  absence  of  nearly  six  years,  and  thank  you  for  the  kindly 
welcome  you  have  given  me.  It  is  with  pleasure  tliat  I  meet  so  many  of 
my  old  friends,  while  I  mourn  the  loss  of  those  who  have  passed  away. 

Princes  and  Chiefs  1  It  is  with  great  satisfaction  that  I  find  nearly  six 
hundred  of  you  assembled  around  me  in  this  Durbar.  I  see  before  me 
the  faces  of  many  friends.  I  recognise  the  sons  of  my  old  allies,  the  Ma- 
haraja of  Cashmere  and  Puttiala;  the  Sikh  chiefs  of  Malwa  and  the 
Manjha  ;  the  Rajpoot  chiefs  of  the  Hills  ;  the  Mohammedan  Mullicks  of 
Peshawar  and  Koliat ;  the  Sirdars  of  the  Derajat,  of  Hazara,  and  of 
Delhi.    All  have  gathered  together  to  do  honour  to  their  old  ruler. 

My  friends!  Let  me  tell  you  of  the  great  interest  which  the  illustrious 
Queen  of  England  takes  in  all  matters  connected  with  the  welfare,  and 
comfort,  and  contentment  of  the  people  in  India.  Let  me  inform  you, 
when  I  returned  to  my  native  country,  and  had  the  honour  of  standing 
in  the  presence  of  Her  Majesty,  how  kindly  she  asked  after  the  welfare  of 
her  subjects  in  the  East.  Let  me  tell  you  when  that  great  Queen  ap- 
pointed me  her  Viceroy  of  India,  how  warmly  she  enjoined  on  me  the 
duty  of  caring  for  your  interests.  Prince  Albert,  the  Consort  of  Her 
Majesty,  the  fame  of  whose  greatness  and  goodness  has  spread  through 
the  whole  world,  was  well  acquainted  with  all  connected  with  this  coun- 
try, and  always  evinced  an  ardent  desire  to  see  its  people  happy  and 
flourishing. 

My  friends  !  It  is  now  more  than  eighteen  years  since  I  first  saw 
Lahore.  For  thirteen  years  I  lived  in  the  Punjab.  For  many  years,  my 
brother,  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  and  I,  governed  this  vast  country.  You 
all  knew  him  well,  and  his  memory  will  ever  dwell  in  your  hearts  as  a 
ruler  who  was  a  real  friend  of  its  people.  I  may  truly  say  that  from  the 
day  we  exercised  authority  in  the  land,  we  spared  neither  our  time,  nor 
our  labour,  nor  our  health,  in  endeavouring  to  accomplish  the  work 
which  we  had  undertaken.  We  studied  to  make  ourselves  acquainted 
with  the  usages,  the  feelings,  and  the  wants  of  every  class  and  race;  and 
we  endeavoured  to  improve  the  condition  of  all.  There  are  few  parts  of 
this  province  which  I  have  not  visited,  and  which  I  hope  that  I  did  not 
leave,  in  some  degree,  the  better  for  my  visit.  Since  British  rule  was 
introduced,  taxation  of  all  kinds  has  been  lightened,  canals  and  roads 
have  been  constructed,  and  schools  of  learning  have  been  established. 
From  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  the  people  have  become  contented,  and 
have  proved  loyal.  When  the  great  military  revolt  of  1857  occurred, 
they  aided  their  rulers  most  effectively  in  putting  it  down.     The  chiefs 


394  LIFE    OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

mustered  their  contingents,  which  served  faithfully,  and  thousands  of 
Punjabi  soldiers  flocked  to  our  standards,  and  shared  with  the  Britisii 
troops  the  glories,  as  well  as  the  hardships,  of  that  great  struggle. 

Princes  and  Gentlemen  !  If  it  be  wise  for  the  rulers  of  a  country  to 
understand  the  language  and  appreciate  the  feelings  of  its  people,  it  is  as 
important  that  the  people  should  have  a  similar  knowledge  of  their 
rulers.  It  is  only  by  such  means  that  the  two  classes  can  live  happily 
together.  To  this  end,  I  urge  you  to  instruct  your  sons,  and  even  your 
daughters. 

Among  the  solid  advantages  which  you  have  gained  from  English 
rule,  I  will  now  only  advert  to  one  more.  It  has  given  the  country 
many  excellent  administrators.  Some  of  the  ablest  and  kindest  of  my 
countrymen  have  been  employed  in  the  Punjab.  Every  man,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  can  appreciate  a  good  ruler.  You  have  such  men 
as  Sir  Robert  Montgomery,  Sir  Donald  Macleod,  Mr.  Roberts,  Sir  Her- 
bert Edwardes,  Colonel  Lake,  and  Colonel  John  Becher — officers  who 
have  devoted  themselves  to  your  service. 

I  will  now  only  add  that  I  pray  the  great  God,  who  is  the  God  of  all 
the  races  and  all  the  people  of  this  world,  that  He  may  guard  and  pro- 
tect you,  and  teach  you  all  to  love  justice  and  hate  oppression,  and  en- 
able you,  each  in  his  several  ways,  to  do  all  the  good  in  his  power.  May 
He  give  you  all  that  is  for  your  real  benefit.  So  long  as  I  live,  I  shall 
never  forget  the  years  that  I  passed  in  the  Punjab,  and  the  friends  that  I 
have  acquired  throughout  this  province. 

No  Governor-General  since  the  time  of  Warren  Hastings,  except 
Sir  John  Shore,  could  have  addressed  an  assembly  of  native  chiefs 
in  their  own  language,  even  if  he  would.  It  is  doubtful  if  he  would 
have  so  addressed  them,  even  if  he  could.  In  any  case,  it  was  an 
act  of  courtesy  and  genuine  feeling,  as  much  as  of  high  policy  on 
the  part  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  which  delighted  all  who  heard  it, 
and  all  who  heard  of  it,  and  was  calculated  to  lessen  the  gulf  which 
still  yawns  between  the  European  and  the  Asiatic,  the  ruler  and  the 
ruled.  Usually,  in  a  grand  Durbar,  the  Foreign  Secretary,  who 
must  almost  necessarily  be  a  good  Oriental  scholar,  takes  his  stand 
behind  the  Governor-General  and  translates,  as  best  he  can,  the 
words  which  have  fallen  from  the  Lord  Sahib.  But  it  is  easy  to  see 
how  much  of  the  grace  and  of  the  dignity,  of  the  interest  and  of 
the  genuineness  of  the  whole  spectacle,  is  necessarily  lost  in  such  a 
process.  Nobody  who  witnessed  the  Lahore  Durbar  and  saw  the 
effect  produced  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  and  his  speech,  could  doubt 
that  the  objections,  theoretical  and  practical,  to  a  Civilian  Viceroy 
sank  into  insignificance,  when  the  times  were  what  they  were,  and 
when  the  civilian  selected  for  the  almost  unprecedented  honour  was 


i864  THE  GREAT   DURBAR   AT   LAHORE.  395 

a  man  with  the  history  and  the  character,  the  abiUties  and  the  per- 
sonal presence  of  Sir  John  Lawrence. 

At  the  close  of  his  speech,  the  Viceroy  took  his  seat,  and  then 
the  Maharajas,  the  Rajas,  and  the  Sirdars,  with  their  principal  fol- 
lowers, were  presented  to  him,  in  due  order  of  precedence.  Each 
chief  brought  up  his  golden  nuzzur,  which  was  touched  by  the 
Governor-General  and  then  laid  at  his  feet.  Sir  John  had  many 
a  kindly  word  and  many  a  hearty  shake  of  the  hand  for  his  old  ac- 
quaintances ;  and  his  eyes  were  seen  visibly  to  brighten  as  some 
chiefs  who  had  done  good  service  in  the  crisis  of  1857  approached 
the  steps  of  his  throne.  Then  followed  the  kJdlluts  or  gifts  of  hon- 
our from  the  Viceroy  to  the  chiefs — silver  vases,  gold  clocks,  inlaid 
rifles,  silk  dresses,  strings  of  pearls  and  other  jewels,  which  reached, 
as  they  lay  upon  the  ground,  from  the  platform  right  up  to  the  en- 
trance of  the  tent.  It  was  a  splendid  sight,  alike  in  what  it  was  and 
what  it  meant. 

And  men  taught  wisdom  from  the  past, 

In  friendship  joined  their  hands; 
Hung  the  sword  in  the  hall,  the  spear  on  the  wall, 

And  ploughed  the  willing  land. 

So  admirable  were  the  arrangements,  that  the  ceremony,  which 
had  been  expected  to  last  till  three  in  the  afternoon,  was  over  two 
hours  before  that  time.  The  Viceroy  left  the  tent,  as  he  had  ar- 
rived, amidst  the  booming  of  guns,  the  roll  of  drums,  and  the  pre- 
senting of  arms.     And  then  the  great  ceremonial  was  over. 

The  absence  of  two  of  Sir  John's  most  redoubtable  lieutenants 
must  have  been  keenly  felt  by  their  chief  even  in  the  midst  of  the 
festivities.  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes  had  been  kept  away  by  illness, 
an  illness  which  was  soon  to  bring  to  a  close  his  brilliant  career  in 
India  ;  while  Major  James,  who  had  *  acted  '  as  Secretary  to  Sir 
John  Lawrence  during  the  first  days  of  the  Mutiny,  at  Rawul  Pindi, 
and  had  since  then,  as  Commissioner  of  Peshawur,  done  good 
service  in  many  a  border  fray  and  many  a  border  parley  with  the 
hill  tribes,  had  been  struck  down,  within  the  last  few  days,  by  death. 
It  happened  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  written  to  Sir  Charles 
Wood  by  the  mail  immediately  preceding,  begging  that  James's 
services  might  receive  adequate  recognition.  But  before  the  letter 
had  well  left  India,  he  had  passed  beyond  the  reach  of  human 
praise  and  reward. 

By  half-past  six  on  the  following  morning,  the  19th,  the  Gov- 
ernor-General was  off  to  open  the  new  railway  to  Mooltan.     A  ride 


39^  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864 

of  twenty-six  miles  brought  him  to  a  station  in  the  midst  of  a  virgin 
jungle,  where  he  breakfasted,  and  made  a  speech  full  of  personal 
reminiscences.  He  was  back  in  Lahore  by  eleven  o'clock,  and, 
that  afternoon  he  was  once  more  off  for  Umritsur  and  Delhi,  and 
the  pleasures  and  labours  of  this  week  of  weeks  were  at  an  end. 
His  note  to  Sir  Charles  Wood,  alluding  to  all  that  he  had  done 
and  seen,  is  curiously  concise  and  businesslike. 

Lahore:  October  19,  1864. 
I  arrived  here  on  the  14th,  and  leave  this  evening,  having  done  what  I 
came  for.  I  have  invested  the  Kuppurlhalla  Raja  with  the  Star  of  India, 
held  a  Durbar  of  some  six  hundred  chiefs  and  leading  men  gathered 
from  the  Jumna  to  the  Khyber,  renewed  my  acquaintance  with  them, 
and  sent  them  away  happy.  Altogether  it  has  been  a  successful  trip. 
Maine  came  with  us,  and  was  much  struck  with  all  he  has  heard  and 
seen. 

The  details  of  the  pageant,  which  the  modesty  or  the  practical 
bent  of  the  writer  had  altogether  suppressed,  of  course  reached  Sir 
Charles  Wood  from  other  quarters,  and  there  will  be  few,  probably, 
who  have  read  the  account  which  I  have  gathered  from  the  news- 
papers of  the  day,  from  private  letters,  and  from  conversations 
with  eye-witnesses,  who  will  not  sympathise  with  the  hearty  felici- 
tations of  Sir  Charles  Wood  : — 

November  25,  1864. 

I  may  congratulate  you  on  the  great  success  of  your  Durbar  at  Lahore. 
It  seems  to  have  been  as  gratifying  and  as  satisfactory  to  yourself,  as  it 
is,  in  a  public  point  of  view,  good  proof  of  your  being  in  your  proper 
place,  and  of  the  general  allegiance  to  your  rule. 

Still  more  grateful  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  must  have  been  the 

high  approval  expressed  by  the  Queen  herself  of  the  words  which, 

as  her  representative  and  Viceroy,  he  had  used  to  the  assembled 

chiefs  in  the  Great  Durbar. 

Osborne  :  January  3,  1865. 

The  Queen  has  to  thank  Sir  John  Lawrence  for  two  interesting  letters 
of  the  i6th  September  and  21st  October,  as  well  as  for  the  enclosures 
and  beautiful  photographs,  which  give  a  good  idea  of  the  splendid  cere- 
mony which  took  place  at  Lahore.  The  Queen  would  be  very  grateful 
if  Sir  J.  Lawrence  would  let  her  have  two  or  three  more  impressions  of 
the  photographs. 

The  Queen  highly  approves  Sir  John  Lawrence's  addresses,  and  is 
truly  rejoiced  to  see  the  good  and  friendly  feeling  which  seems  to  per- 
vade the  Chiefs,  which  cannot  fail  to  do  lasting  good. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  VICEROYALTY.     1865-1S66. 

There  is,  in  Hindu  mythology,  the  story  of  a  giant  who  was  of  so 
huge  a  stature  that  when  his  foot  was  cut  off,  it  took  a  long  time 
for  the  news  to  reach  his  ear.  India  itself  is,  or  rather,  perhaps, 
was,  like  that  giant.  It  is  a  country  of  violent  contrasts.  While 
everything  seems  to  smile  in  one  portion  of  its  vast  circumference, 
high  festival  was  being  held  at  one  of  its  extremities,  another  is 
being  devastated  by  a  terrible  cyclone,  by  a  flood,  or  by  a  famine. 
While  the  banks  of  the  Ravi  were  glittering  with  all  the  chivalry  of 
Northern  India  assembled  in  Durbar  to  do  honour  to  Sir  John  Law- 
rence, the  banks  of  the  Hooghly  were  being  strewn,  for  miles,  with 
dismantled  or  waterlogged  vessels,  with  houses  which  had  been 
bodily  overturned,  with  corrugated  iron  roofs  which  had  been 
doubled  up  like  sheets  of  paper,  with  huge  trees  which  had  been 
torn  up  by  their  roots  and  whirled  away  like  wasps  of  straw.  Nor 
was  the  wind  the  only  or  the  worst  enemy  of  the  miserable  inhab- 
itants of  the  low-lying  land  between  Calcutta  and  the  sea.  A  huge 
wall  of  water,  twelve  feet  in  height,  stretching  from  bank  to  bank, 
and  overlapping  them  both  by  several  miles,  had  come  rushing  up 
the  river  from  the  sea,  and  had  swept  away  every  obstacle,  crops 
and  trees,  wharves  and  houses,  whole  villages  and  populations  in 
its  course. 

Everything  that  could  be  done  to  alleviate  the  distress  was  done 
by  order  of  Sir  John  Lawrence.  But  little  was  that  everything ; 
and  his  letters,  as  he  approached  Calcutta,  or  went  down  afterwards 
to  Barrackpore,  give  interesting  details  of  the  havoc  which  met  his 
eyes,  though  he  did  not  know,  and  no  one  could  know  till  much 
later,  the  full  extent  of  the  calamity.  'About  forty  ships,'  he  says, 
'  some  of  them  very  fine  ones,  have  been  sunk  or  thrown  on  shore 
and  destroyed.  The  loss  of  life  among  the  English  sailors  is  small. 
But  a  great  number  are  thrown  adrift.  The  destruction  of  life 
among  the  natives  is  considerable.  Out  of  a  population  of  3,000 
on  Sangor  Island  at  the  mouth  of  the  river,  not  more  than  ten  per 

397 


398  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

cent,  survive.  From  Burdwan  downwards  to  Calcutta  we  came  on 
uprooted  trees  and  broken  down  telegraph  posts.'  A  few  days 
later,  he  writes  from  Barrackpore  : — 

I  came  up  here  this  morning  not  feeling  very  well.  All  the  way, 
the  country  shows  unmistakeably  the  terrible  effects  of  the  late  cyclone. 
Many  of  the  finest  trees  of  the  avenue  planted  in  Lord  Wellesley's  time 
between  Calcutta  and  Barrackpore  have  been  torn  up.  The  park  also 
is  strewn  by  fallen  trees.  The  chief  sufferers  are  the  people  along 
the  banks  of  the  Hooghly  towards  the  sea.  In  these  districts  tiie  loss 
of  life  and  property  has  been  immense.  We  are  doing  what  we  can 
to  afford  relief. 

And  again,  a  little  later  : — 

December  17. 

The  disaster  at  Madras  seems  to  have  been  even  greater  than  was 
at  first  reported.  Sir  W.  Denison  estimates  the  loss  of  life  at  30,000 
people.  In  like  manner,  it  is  now  said  that  the  mortality  consequent 
on  the  Calcutta  cyclone  has  reached  that  figure.     This  is  very  terrible. 

On  his  way  down  from  Lahore,  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  paid  a 
flying  visit  to  Delhi.  It  was  the  city  which,  of  all  others,  next  after 
the  capital  of  the  Punjab,  if  indeed  it  did  not  come  even  before  it 
— he  regarded  with  the  strongest  affection,  and  was  most  bound  up 
with  his  early  work  and  fame.  He  arrived  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  when  the  whole  city  w^as  wrapped  in  sleep,  and  took  up  his 
quarters  at  Ludlow  Castle,  the  old  Residency,  and  a  place  endeared 
to  him  by  the  recollections  of  a  lifetime.  Nor  was  it  till  four  hours 
later,  when  the  cannon  in  the  fort  began  to  thunder  forth  a  royal 
salute,  that  the  inhabitants  discovered  that  their  old  Collector  and 
Magistrate  was  in  their  midst.  He  stayed  only  two  days  ;  and,  to 
the  keen  disappointment  of  the  citizens,  his  visit  was  one  of  business 
only,  not  of  ceremony  or  state.  But  he  found  time  to  inspect  the 
splendid  Palace  of  the  Moguls,  which  he  had  saved  from  destruc- 
tion, and  had  now  been  converted  into  an  English  fortress  ;  to  ar- 
range that  the  strength  of  the  garrison  should  not  be  reduced  ;  to 
give  orders  that  the  memorial  to  those  who  had  fallen  in  the  siege 
should  be  at  once  completed,  and  to  visit  the  grave  of  the  most  in- 
tractable and  most  heroic  of  them  all — the  grave  of  John  Nicholson. 

On  December  7,  soon,  that  is,  after  he  had  taken  up  his  winter 
quarters  in  Calcutta,  he  was  gladdened  by  the  arrival  of  his  wife. 
It  was  just  a  year  since  he  had  left  her  at  Southgate.  In  the  in- 
termediate March,  a  daughter,  Maude,  had  been  born  ;  and,  now, 
after  much  doubt  and  discussion  as  to  the  conflicting  claims  of  her 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  399 

husband  in  India  and  her  children  in  England,  those  of  her  hus- 
band had  won  the  day.  Accordingly,  leaving  lier  other  children  to 
the  care  of  her  sister,  Letitia  Hayes,  at  Southgate,  Lady  Lawrence 
set  out  for  India  with  her  two  eldest  and  her  youngest  daughters. 
*  You  cannot  think,'  says  Sir  John,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  in  Eng- 
land shortly  afterwards,  '  what  a  difference  the  arrival  of  my  wife 
has  made  to  me  ! '  But  those  who  know  the  man  will  not  need  to 
be  told  how  the  gaieties  of  Government  House,  henceforward, 
seemed  less  dreary,  and  how  the  troubles  inseparable  from  his  office 
were  often  lessened  or  removed  by  a  quiet  talk  in  the  intervals  of 
his  work. 

Not  that  he  had  been  during  his  first  year  of  office  altogether 
without  the  society  of  members  of  his  own  family.  Captain  Impey, 
his  Military  Secretary,  had  married  a  daughter  of  his  eldest  brother 
George,  and  Alexander  Lawrence,  the  eldest  son  of  Sir  Henry,  had 
married  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Kennedy,  one  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's 
oldest  friends  and  connections  in  Ireland^ ;  and  both  couples  had 
found  a  home  with  him  in  Government  House.  He  always  felt 
that  he  could  not  do  too  much  for  his  brother  Henry's  children. 
But  a  terrible  accident  had  carried  off  Sir  Alexander,  and  had  left 
an  infant  of  six  months  old  the  heir  to  the  name  and  title  of  his 
illustrious  grandfather,  Sir  Henry.  Sir  Alexander  had  gone  out 
with  his  uncle,  Richard  Lawrence,  who  was  now  Deputy- Commis- 
sioner of  the  Simla  District,  and  superintendent  of  the  Hill  States, 
on  an  expedition  towards  Thibet.  The  road  took  a  direct  line 
over  almost  inaccessible  heights  and  along  frightful  precipices.  In 
some  parts,  it  was  not  so  much  cut  out  of  the  side  of  the  mountain 
as  carried  over  its  flank,  and  supported  by  beams  let  into  the  rocks. 
The  party  were  riding  along  one  of  these  galleries,  Sir  Alexander 
in  front,  when  a  portion  of  the  platform  gave  way,  and  hurled  both 
horse  and  rider  some  two  hundred  feet  down  into  the  abyss  below. 
All  that  the  tenderness  and  care  of  her  own  father  could  have  done 
for  the  young  widow.  Sir  John  Lawrence  did  in  the  hour  of  her 
desolation.  He  had  been  left  the  guardian  of  the  little  Sir  Henry, 
and  it  was  a  trust  which  he  discharged  faithfully  to  the  last. 

The  sympathy  of  the  Queen  for  the  Lawrence  family  was  as 
warm  and  as  warmly  expressed  as  was  her  concern  for  the  sufferers 

by  the  cyclone. 

Osborne  :  January  3,  1865. 
The    Queen    was   much    grieved    to   learn   the    awfully   sudden    and 
sad  death  of    his  nephew,  the  son  of  his  disting-uished  and    lamented 
brother,  Sir  H.  Lawrence,  and   offers  her  sincere  condolence  to  all  his 
family. 


400  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

The  storm  at  Calcutta  seems  to  have  been  most  terrific,  and  the  Queen 
would  be  glad  to  have  some  authentic  details  of  it.  She  fears  that 
Barrackpore  has  suffered,  but  hopes  the  tomb  of  dear  Lady  Canning  was 
not  injured. 

The  Queen  cannot  conclude  without  expressing  her  earnest  hope  that 
Lady  Lawrence  has  arrived  in  safety,  and  her  deep  regret  that  by  some 
unfortunate  mistake  the  Queen  did  not  see  her  before  her  departure, 
which  she  had  much  wished  to  do. 

But  I  must  return  to  more  public  matters.  The  letters  of  Sir 
John  Lawrence  written  during  the  cool  season  at  Calcutta  deal  with 
many  questions  of  practical  imi:)ortance  in  which  he  was  keenly  in- 
terested. Such  were  the  abolition  of  the  '  half-batta '  system,  the 
extension  of  irrigation  works  by  Government,  the  construction  of 
improved  barracks  and  of  fortified  positions  throughout  India,  the 
abolition  of  grand  juries,  the  reorganization  of  the  native  army,  and 
the  reduction  of  the  numbers  of  the  English  army.  But  the  greatest 
and  increasing  cause  of  anxiety,  and  that  which  affected  and  inter- 
penetrated all  his  views  on  these  subjects,  was  the  state  of  the 
finances.  In  the  winter  of  1864- 1865  there  were  sad  anticipations 
of  a  general  drought.  The  great  military  works  under  contempla- 
tion were  to  cost  the  enormous  sum  of  ten  million  pounds  sterling. 
There  was  a  demand  for  a  general  rise  of  salaries,  and  every  item 
of  expenditure  in  every  branch  of  the  service  was  steadily  increas- 
ing. Under  such  circumstances,  the  first  duty  of  a  statesman  was 
financial.  But  in  this  task  he  found  himself  '  cabined,  cribbed,  con- 
fined '  on  every  side.  He  stood  almost  alone.  Everybody,  he  often 
complains,  was  for  economy  in  the  abstract,  but  was  entirely  opposed 
to  each  particular  and  each  practicable  measure  of  economical  reform. 

He  had  written  to  Sir  Charles  Wood,  on  May  29,  1864 : — 

I  am  myself  very  strongly  for  reductions,  because  I  am  strongly  op. 
posed  to  further  taxation.  We  now  hardly  make  the  two  ends  meet.  Our 
expenses  are  yearly  increasing,  and  will  increase.  We  have  not  a  suf- 
ficient income  for  improvements,  and  a  considerable  slice  of  our  revenue, 
as  you  know  well,  is  uncertain.  In  August  1865  the  income  tax  must 
cease.  We  must,  as  soon  as  practicable,  provide  for  this  loss.  I  greatly 
deprecate  additional  taxation  ;  for  I  know  the  complications  which  are 
likely  to  ensue.  The  minds  of  the  natives  are  unsettled.  It  is  far  belter 
to  reduce  expenditure  than  to  increase  taxation.  I  have  always  advo- 
cated this  policy,  as  you  know.  Napier  thinks  and  says  that  whenever 
we  want  reductions  we  have  recourse  to  the  army.  But  he  takes  no 
account  of  the  improvements  which  have  been  effected  in  the  army,  all 
of  which  cost  money.  I  must  add  that  Norman  agrees  with  me  that  the 
reductions  which  I  advocate  can  be  safely  effected. 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  4OI 

But  in  the  autumn  of  the  year  like  causes  were  still  producing 
like  effects,  and,  throughout  his  Viceroyalty,  Sir  John  Lawrence 
found  that  to  advocate  economy  was  to  set  nearly  every  interest  in 
the  country,  except  those  of  the  millions,  against  him.  And  in 
India  more  even  than  in  other  countries,  it  is  the  few  and  not  the 
many,  the  rich  and  not  the  poor,  who  can  most  easily  make  their 
wants  known  and  their  voices  heard.     He  says,  on  February  4  : — 

Our  financial  prospects  are  very  gloomy  indeed.  The  furore  for  ex- 
penditure is  excessive.  A  considerable  sum  must  belaid  out  in  building 
new  barracks  and  improving  the  old  ones.  But  the  tendency  is  to  overdo 
the  matter.  I  would  limit  this  if  I  could  hope  for  any  support,  but  this 
I  do  not  see.  Sir  Hugh  Rose  and  Napier  have  no  regard  for  financial 
considerations,  and  Frere  is  worse  than  anybody.  It  was  only  the  other 
day  that  he  wanted  to  pay  four  lacs  of  rupees  for  twenty  acres  of  land 
on  which  to  construct  a  lunatic  asylum  near  Bombay  !  He  has  also 
allowed  buildings  to  be  self-erected  at  Kurrachi  for  the  Telegraphic 
Department,  which  will  cost  two  and  three  quarter  lacs  of  rupees  by 
the  time  they  are  finished  !  I  really  believe  that  it  is  not  practicable  to 
add  much  to  our  income  in  India.  You  know  that  I  have  often  said 
this,  long  before  there  was  ever  any  expectation  of  my  coming  out.  It 
is  most  difficult  to  raise  revenue  by  indirect  taxation,  and  direct  taxation 
necessitates  inquiry,  which,  again,  endangers  oppression  and  discontent. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  Council  had  come  round  reluc- 
tantly to  the  conclusion  that  the  income  tax  must  be  retained  for 
another  year,  and  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan,  who  had,  at  one  time, 
sacrificed  all  his  prospects  in  India  to  his  objections  to  that  impost, 
seemed  to  be  of  the  same  opinion.  But  on  the  day  before  the  pro- 
mulgation of  the  Budget,  it  was  found  at  a  meeting  of  the  Council 
that  he  had  returned  to  his  old  hate,  and  that  all  the  members  of 
the  Council  present,  except  the  Governor-General  himself,  had 
harked  back  with  him. 

Each  in  other's  countenance  read  his  own  dismay. 

The  Governor-General  might,  of  course,  have  overruled  them. 
But  knowing  that  Trevelyan  would  be  tempted  to  look  back  upon 
his  whole  financial  administration  as  a  failure,  if  he  did  not  have, 
as  he  expressed  it,  as  least  the  grim  satisfaction  of  '  laying  the  in- 
come tax  upon  the  shelf,  a  potent  but  imperfect  fiscal  machine 
complete  in  all  its  gear,  ready  to  be  re-imposed  in  any  new  emer- 
gency,' he  declined  to  take  so  strong  a  step,  and  accepted  the 
alternative  proposal  of  a  loan  for  public  works  and  an  increase  in 
the  export  duties. 
VOL.  11. — 26 


402  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

Our  Budget  (says  Sir  John)  came  off  on  the  ist.  The  details  I  need 
not  quote.  The  day  before  we  had  a  Council,  consisting  of  Trevelyan, 
Harington,  Grey,  and  myself  on  it.  Taylor  was  laid  up  with  cholera.  I 
was  for  retaining  the  income  tax  for  another  year  certain,  but  stood 
alone  in  this  view.  After  a  long  debate  we  broke  up,  and  I  wrote  and 
circulated  in  the  evening  a  memorandum,  copy  of  which  I  send  you. 
The  result  was  that  Trevelyan  then  came  over,  and  proposed,  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  income  tax,  the  export  duties,  and  an  addition  of  two  annas 
extra  on  salt.  To  this  latter  proposition  I  would  not  consent,  but  I 
accepted  the  other  duties.  The  Budget  had  only  just  been  completed, 
and  Trevelyan  was  very  anxious  to  have  it  out.  He  looked  worn  and 
broken,  and  I  did  not  like  to  postpone  it.  The  export  duties  are  an  evil ; 
and  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  against  all  of  them,  except  those  on 
jute,  wool,  and,  perhaps,  rice.  .  .  .  Had  I  seen  my  way  at  all,  I  would 
have  held  out  for  the  income  tax.  But  even  if  I  had  overruled  the 
Executive  Council,  I  should  have  had  difficulty  in  securing  a  majority, 
for  several  of  the  Legislative  Council  would  have  gone  against  us.  It 
seems  to  me  to  be  an  enormous  evil  deliberately  incurring  debt  at  a  time 
above  all  others,  when,  on  tiie  one  hand,  we  are,  on  the  whole,  so  pros- 
perous, and,  on  the  other,  have  so  many  demands  coming  on  us. 

The  Budget  was  ultimately  disallowed  by  Sir  Charles  Wood,  and 
it  is  clear  from  the  above  letter  that  the  Governor-General  was, 
personally,  inclined  to  agree  with  him.  But  meanwhile  he  went  oft 
to  Simla,  and  a  great  shifting  of  the  chief  actors  on  the  Indian  stage 
took  place.  Several  of  his  oldest  friends  and  lieutenants  took 
their  leave  of  the  country.  Sir  Robert  Montgomery  retired  upon 
his  laurels  after  his  successful  administration  of  the  Punjab,  hap- 
pily with  many  years  of  life  and  work  left  in  him.  Sir  Charles 
Trevelyan  did  the  same,  to  the  great  grief  of  his  chief,  with  whom 
he  had  been  in  almost  perfect  sympathy  throughout.  Sir  Herbert 
Edwardes,  who  had  been  named  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  as  the  next 
best  candidate  after  Donald  Macleod  for  the  Lieutenant-Governor- 
ship of  the  Punjab,  also  went  home  invalided.  Few  men  have 
carved  out  for  themselves,  so  early  in  life,  so  brilliant  a  career  in 
India  as  he.  *  He  is  a  born  ruler  of  men,'  said  his  chief  when 
grieving  over  its  premature  termination.  But  though  Sir  Herbert 
Edwardes  had  done  with  India,  he  had  not  yet  done  with  the  Law- 
rences. For  he  was  to  dedicate  a  considerable  portion  of  the  few 
years  which  remained  to  him  to  the  preparation  of  the  biography 
of  his  prime  friend  and  patron,  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  ;  while  an- 
other portion  he  was  to  give  ungrudgingly  to  the  care  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Sir  John  Lawrence.  It  was  a  true  knightly  service  rendered 
to  the  man  who  came  next  in  his  affection  and  only  next  after  Sir 
Henry.     Had  he  not  been  willing  to  step  into  the  gap  made  by  the 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  403 

death  of  Mrs.  Hayes  in  1865,  Lady  Lawrence  must  have  gone 
home  at  once,  and  Sir  John  Lawrence  would  have  been  deprived 
during  the  remainder  of  his  Viceroyalty,  of  the  help  and  comfort 
which  none  but  his  wife  could  give  him. 

The  changes  in  Council  were  equally  great.  Harington  had 
gone  home  permanently  ;  Maine  temporarily.  Sir  Hugh  Rose  was 
succeeded  by  General  Mansfield,  Napier  by  Durand,  Trevelyan  by 
Massey.  The  Governor-General  and  Grey  were  thus  the  only  two 
members  remaining  of  the  Council  of  the  previous  year.  Happily, 
however,  for  Sir  John  Lawrence's  peace  of  mind,  there  were  some 
few  of  his  older  friends  who  were  still  left  in  India  and  had  suc- 
ceeded to  some  of  the  most  responsible  positions  there.  The  Pun- 
jab had  passed  into  the  hands  of  Macleod,  the  Central  Provinces 
into  those  of  Temple  ;  while  Napier  had,  on  the  strength  of  his 
old  chief's  urgent  representations,  been  given  the  command  of  the 
Bombay  army.  The  Horse  Guards  had  raised  the  time-honoured 
objection  that  so  high  a  command  ought  not  to  be  conferred  upon 
an  Engineer  officer  ;  on  any  member,  that  is,  of  the  most  scientific 
branch  of  the  service,  and  one  whose  preeminent  qualifications  had 
been  tested  in  China,  as  well  as  in  the  Punjab  and  Central  India  ! 
But  Sir  John  Lawrence's  pertinacity  was  successful,  and  Sir  Robert 
Napier  received  the  post  from  which,  by  a  natural  sequence  of 
events,  he  was  ultimately  to  become,  amidst  universal  acclamations, 
Lord  Napier  of  Magdala,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Indian  army, 
Governor  of  Gibraltar,  and,  last  of  all,  on  the  day  on  which  I  hap^- 
pen  to  be  revising  this  portion  of  my  work,  a  Field  Marshal. 

The  appointment  of  so  many  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  old  lieu- 
tenants to  high  offices  was  sure  to  give  a  new  lease  of  life  to  the 
cry  which  had  been  raised  even  before  he  set  foot  in  India,  that 
the  country  was  doomed  under  his  rule,  to  undergo  a  process  of 
*  Punjabisation  !  '  His  answer  to  the  impeachment,  so  far  as  he 
cared  to  give  one,  I  find  incidentally  introduced  into  a  letter  writ- 
ten to  Sir  Charles  Wood  on  quite  another  subject. 

While  on  this  subject  (he  says),  I  think  it  as  well  to  allude  to  what  is 
called  my  proclivity  for  officers,  civil  and  military,  who  have  served 
under  me  in  the  Punjab.  Of  course,  I  know  such  men  best,  and  where 
I  have  nad  personal  experience  of  an  officer's  capacity,  I  prefer  trusting 
to  my  own  judgment  rather  than  to  that  of  other  men.  liut  beyond  this, 
and  beyond  the  fact  that  many  of  the  officers  who  have  been  trained  in 
the  Punjab  have  proved  their  qualifications  by  an  ordeal  of  a  very  diffi- 
cult character,  so  many  officers  have  been,  at  one  time  or  the  other, 
employed  in  that  province,  that  it  is  not  easy  to  select  men  of  maris,  who 


404  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

arc  not,  in  some  degree,  open  to  this  reproach.  But  if  I  know  myself  at 
all,  I  believe  that  the  sole  motive  I  have  had  in  view  is  the  public  service, 
and  that  for  all  appointments  of  any  real  importance,  I  have  selected 
officers  only  for  their  approved  merits.  I  know  not  a  single  instance  in 
vi'hich  any  of  these  men  have  failed  to  do  justice  to  my  selection.  I  claim 
no  merit  in  this  way.  For  any  other  conduct  in  my  difficult  position 
would  he  simply  suicidal.  But,  at  any  rate,  I  do  not  deserve  the  obloquy 
which  has  been  cast  upon  me.  No  man,  however,  in  high  position,  who 
does  not  help  those  who  have  done  him  service  by  doing  well  that  of 
the  State,  is  fitted  for  command. 

No  one  who  knew  anything  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  could  doubt 
that  these  were  the  principles  on  which,  even  to  a  fault,  he  had  al- 
ways administered  the  public  patronage.  Every  appointment  was 
in  his  eyes  a  sacred  trust  into  which  no  personal  consideration 
should  be  allowed  to  enter.  Members  of  his  own  family  indeed, 
and  some  of  his  more  intimate  friends,  often  complained  that  their 
relationship  or  their  friendship  was  a  positive  bar  to  the  promotion 
to  which,  without  it,  they  would  have  been  entitled.  '  Why  don't 
you  give  me  the  post  ? '  said  a  very  near  relative  to  him  once.  '  I 
am  as  fit  for  it  as  anybody  else.'  'That's  just  it,'  replied  the  Gov- 
ernor-General ;  you  are  as  fit  as  anybody  else,  but  as  you  are  a  near 
relative,  you  ought  to  be  better  fitted  for  it  than  anyone  else,  to 
justify  me  in  giving  it  to  you.'  In  such  matters,  his  public  duty 
was  all  in  all  to  him.  But  if  any  specific  instances  are  necessary  to 
show  that  he  was  in  no  way  wedded  to  Punjabis,  when  he  thought 
that  he  could  find  equally  good  material  elsewhere,  it  will  be  suf- 
ficient perhaps  to  mention  the  names,  among  many  others,  of  Sir 
John  Strachey,  of  General  Strachey,  of  Sir  William  Grey,  of  Muir, 
of  W.  S.  Seton-Karr  and  of  R.  B.  Chapman.  None  of  these,  so  far 
as  I  am  aware,  had  any  connection,  direct  or  indirect,  with  the 
administration  of  the  Punjab. 

It  was,  no  doubt,  one  of  the  characteristics,  and  possibly  also  one  of 
the  weaknesses  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  regarded  as  a  ruler  of  men, 
that  he  rarely  praised  a  subordinate,  or  expressed  the  warm  feelings 
which  he  cherished  towards  him,  to  his  face.  It  is  easy  to  under- 
stand his  motives.  But  it  is  equally  easy  to  see  that  for  the  few 
men  who  might  appreciate  him  the  more  for  it,  there  would  be  many 
who  would  feel  annoyed  or  distressed.  Praise,  when  it  is  absolutely 
genuine,  and  is  bestowed  with  discernment,  is,  rarely,  thrown  away, 
and  is,  still  more  rarely,  hurtful  to  the  recipient.  Here  is  an  anec- 
dote in  point.  There  was  no  one  among  the  good  men  and  true 
who  were  obliged  to  leave  India  during  this  year  whose  departure 


1865-06  THE   VICEROYALTY.  405 

Sir  John  Lawrence  regretted  more  on  public  grounds  than  that  of 
Colonel  Richard  Strachey.  But  when  Strachey  first  told  him  of  his 
contemplated  resignation,  he  received  the  announcement,  as  he 
might  have  received  any  other  statement  of  fact,  with  hardly  even 
a  conventional  expression  of  regret  !  Little  wonder  if,  under  such 
circumstances,  vStrachey  went  away  feeling,  for  the  moment,  that 
his  chief  had  little  sympathy  and  gratitude.  He  happened,  shortly 
afterwards,  to  meet  Sir  Henry  Norman,  and  gave  vent  to  his  feel- 
ings on  the  subject  without  reserve.  But,  in  the  interim,  Norman 
had  himself  happened  to  meet  the  Governor-General  and  had  heard 
him  express,  in  no  measured  language,  his  high  appreciation  of 
General  Strachey's  services,  and  his  positive  dismay  at  his  approach- 
ing departure.  Thus  the  wound  was,  in  this  instance,  healed 
almost  as  soon  as  it  was  inflicted  ;  and  Strachey,  very  probably, 
went  home  understanding  the  character  of  his  chief  not  less,  but 
more. 

Sir  John  Lawrence's  letters  to  the  Secretary  of  State  are  full  of 
his  genuine  feeling  towards  the  man  who  had  done  such  admirable 
service  in  the  Public  Works  Department,  and  whom  he  might  have 
been  supposed  by  an  outsider,  if  he  had  happened  to  be  present  at 
the  interview  between  them,  not  to  have  sufficiently  appreciated.  I 
quote  a  few  words  from  one  of  them.  '  Colonel  Strachey  goes  home 
by  next  mail.  He  is  a  very  great  loss  to  the  Government.  I  think 
that  I  may  fairly  say  that  we  could  almost  have  better  spared  any 
other  man.  He  is  able,  quick,  resolute,  and  sound.  I  never  met 
him  till  I  came  to  India  this  last  time.  But  if  you  want  a  man  at 
any  time  I  commend  him  to  your  notice. ' 

The  internal  peace  enjoyed  by  India  throughout  Sir  John  Law- 
rence's administration  was  such  as  she  had  seldom  enjoyed  before. 
But  during  these  first  two  years,  in  a  remote  corner  of  the  country, 
a  desultory  and  insignificant,  but  highly  irritating  frontier  conflict 
had  been  going  on,  a  conflict  in  which  there. was  much  to  be  lost, 
and  nothing,  not  even  military  glory,  to  be  won.  Hostilities  of  the 
kind  cannot  always  be  avoided  in  a  country  which  has  a  frontier 
like  that  of  India.  But  he  is  the  best  and  most  successful  ruler  who 
reduces  their  number  to  a  minimum,  who  confines  them  to  the  nar- 
rowest possible  limits,  who  aims  at  prevention  rather  than  cure,  and 
sets  his  face  like  a  rock  against  all  self-sought  and  aggressive  wars. 
Such  had  been  Sir  John  Lawrence's  policy  throughout  his  Punjab 
career,  and  it  was  by  a  cruel  freak  of  fortune  that  just  before  he  set 
foot  in  India  as  Governor-General,  the  one  step  had  been  taken  by 
the  leave  or  by  the  order  of  his  predecessor,  which,  under  existing 


4o6  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

conditions,  was  almost  certain  to  lead  up  to  prolonged  and  inglori- 
ous hostilities.  The  hostilities  in  question  are  generally  known  by 
the  name  of  the  Bhotan  war. 

Bhotan  is  a  mountainous  strip  of  country  lying  along  the  southern 
slope  of  the  Himalayas,  between  Nepal  on  the  West,  Assam  on  the 
South,  and  Thibet  on  the  East  and  North,  while,  thrust  in  like  a 
wedge,  between  it  and  Nepal,  is  the  little  frontier  state  of  Sikkim, 
and  the  terrestrial  paradise  of  Darjeeling.  It  is  a  poor  and  moun- 
tainous country,  still  all  but  unknown,  with  a  climate  deadly,  above 
most  others  in  India,  to  Europeans,  inhabited  by  a  scanty  popula- 
tion of  unlettered  barbarians  who  had  been  driven,  ever  and  anon, 
either  by  their  poverty  or  their  predatory  instincts,  to  make  incur- 
sions on  the  '  Doars  '  or  rich  plains  below,  which  had  fallen,  partly 
or  entirely,  under  British  rule.  It  was  a  country,  therefore,  like 
Afghanistan,  with  which  the  less  we  could  afford  to  meddle,  the 
better  for  us.  There  was  much  to  be  said  for  an  efficient  frontier 
force,  and  an  occasional  expedition  across  the  frontier  to  punish 
aggressors  when  their  aggressions  became  importunate.  But  there 
was  little  or  nothing  to  be  said  for  the  step  which  the  Bengal  Gov- 
ernment had  persuaded  Lord  Elgin  to  adopt,  the  sending  of  a 
European  envoy  who  was  unable  to  speak  a  word  of  the  Bhotia 
language,  with  all  the  paraphernalia  of^an  embassy  and  a  make  be- 
lieve of  military  force,  into  a  country  which  had  just  passed  through 
the  throes  of  a  revolution  ;  which  had  no  fixed,  or  responsible,  or 
intelligible  government  ;  which  had  hardly  even  a  capital  of  its 
own  ;  and  was  plainly  reluctant  to  receive  those  advances  from  us 
which  turn  out  generally  to  be  a  prelude  not  to  peace  and  friend- 
ship, but  to  war  and  annexation. 

Yet  this  was  what  had  been  done,  and  the  natural  result  followed. 
Ashley  Eden,  the  envoy,  received  no  answer  from  the  Bhotan  Gov- 
ernment— probably  because  there  was,  just  then,  no  government  at 
all  to  give  it — to  the  announcement  that  he  was  coming  at  the  head 
of  an  embassy,  and  that  he  wished  to  have  his  approach  facilitated. 
He  was  forced,  therefore  to  open  communications  with  the  Jung- 
pens,  or  inferior  frontier  chiefs,  who  played  with  him  for  purposes 
of  their  own,  and  put  every  possible  obstacle  in  his  way.  Nothing 
daunted,  Eden  started  from  Darjeeling ;  and  from  that  moment,  till 
he  set  foot  in  it  again,  he  was  exposed  to  difficulties,  discourage- 
ments, and  dangers  of  every  kind.  Deserted  by  his  coolies  at  the 
outset,  he  was  cajoled  by  one  chief,  threatened  by  another,  fleeced 
or  starved  by  all.  Still  he  pressed  on,  with  a  courage  and  resolu- 
tion worthy  of  a  better  cause,  and  worthy  also,  I  would  add,  of  his 


1865-66  THE  VICEROYALTY.  407 

distinguished  career  since  then  as  Chief  Commissioner  of  Burmah 
and  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Bengal.  Bhotan  was  usually  subject 
to  a  double  government,  something  like  that  which  prevailed  till 
recently  in  Japan.  There  was  a  Dhurmraja  or  spiritual  ruler,  who 
answered  more  or  less  to  the  Mikado,  and  a  Debraja  or  temporal 
ruler,  who  answered  more  or  less  to  the  Tycoon.  But,  unfortu- 
nately, neither  of  these  potentates  was  to  be  found  at  the  presumed 
capital,  Panaka,  when  Eden  succeeded  in  reaching  it.  It  had  fallen, 
for  the  time,  under  the  control  of  a  successful  usurper,  named  the 
Tongso  Penlow.  By  his  direction  or  connivance,  a  long  series  of 
studied  insults  which  had  been  offered  to  the  envoy,  culminated  in 
gross  personal  violence  ;  and  a  treaty  was  extracted  from  him  by 
which  he  bound  the  English  Government  to  surrender  the  Doars  to 
Bhotan  and, — a  proviso  added  in  bitter  irony — to  give  up  the  Bho- 
tia  subjects  whom  we  had  kidnapped  !  This  done,  he  and  his  fol- 
lowers were  allowed  to  escape  with  their  lives. 

Such  insults  could  not  be  overlooked.  Sir  John  Lawrence  in- 
stantly repudiated  the  treaty,  and  thus  explained  to  Sir  Charles  Wood 
the  part  he  had  borne  or  not  borne  in  the  untoward  business  : — 

When  I  first  arrived  in  Calcutta  there  was  so  much  pressing  matter 
that  I  gave  no  heed  to  the  Bhotan  mission.  When  I  saw  from  Mr. 
Eden's  notes  that  he  had  met  with  difficulties  and  impediments,  I  became 
a  little  anxious,  but  I  did  not  like  to  recall  him.  There  was  not  sufficient 
information  to  justify  my  doing  so,  and  Beadon  moreover  thought  it  was 
too  late,  and  that  Eden  had  got  too  far  on  the  road  to  be  recalled.  I  there- 
fore did  nothing,  trusting  that  his  savoir-faire  and  judgment  would 
bring  him  through.  ...  It  seems  tome  it  was  a  mistake  sending  a  mis- 
sion into  the  country  at  all,  for  there  was  no  proper  authority  with  whom 
to  negotiate.  But  it  was  a  still  greater  mistake  for  Eden  to  go  on,  when  he 
found  that  the  Rajas  were  unwilling  to  receive  him.  Perhaps,  however, 
I  am  only  wise  after  the  event  ;  and  I  do  not  wish  to  condemn  Eden, 
who,  by  all  accounts,  is  a  very  fine  fellow. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  at  once  informed  the  Bhotan  Government 
by  letter  that  the  allowance  hitherto  paid  to  it  for  the  Eastern  or 
Assam  Doars,  amounting  to  12,000  rupees  yearly,  would  be  discon- 
tinued. He  demanded  that  all  British  subjects,  who  had  been 
kidnapped  within  the  last  five  years,  should  be  set  free,  and  de- 
clared that,  unless  his  demands  were  complied  with  by  September 
I,  he  would  enforce  them  by  arms.  No  answer  was  given  to  his 
letter — very  possibly  for  the  same  reason  as  before,  because  all  gov- 
ernment in  Bhotan  was  in  abeyance.  So,  in  the  November  follow- 
ing. Sir  John  declared  the  Western  or  Bengal  Doars  to  be  also  for- 


408  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

feited,  and  ordered  the  force  which  had  been  collected  on  the 
frontier  to  advance.  A  few  weeks  sufficed,  at  no  appreciable  loss 
of  life  to  ourselves,  to  put  the  five  forts  which  commanded  the 
Bengal  Doars  into  the  hands  of  the  five  Columns  advancing  upon 
them.  The  Bhotias  turned  out  to  be  even  more  contemptible  as 
foes  than  we  had  imagined  them  to  be,  and  then, — as  has  often 
happened  to  us,  before  and  since,  under  similar  circumstances — the 
military  authorities  were  lapped  into  security.  They  neglected  to 
fortify  the  positions  which  they  had  taken, — -and  with  the  result 
that  might  have  been  expected.  The  real  ruler  of  that  part  of  the 
country,  the  Tongso  Penlow,  in  accordance  with  a  chivalrous 
custom  often  found  among  barbarians,  sent  the  English  Generals, 
in  January,  1865,  formal  notice,  that  if  they  did  not  evacuate  his 
forts  within  seven  days  he  v/ould,  at  the  end  of  that  time,  try  con- 
clusions with  them.  Unfortunately  there  was  no  one  in  camp  who 
could  read  liis  letter  !  So  when  he  came,  he  found  us  unprepared. 
He  contrived  to  cut  off  the  water  supply  of  the  garrison  posted  at 
Dewangiri.  The  officer  in  command  evacuated  the  place  by  night. 
A  panic  ensued,  the  retreat  was  converted  into  a  rout,  and  two  of 
our  guns  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  despised  Bhotias. 

The  indignation  in  India  at  this  disgrace  was  intense,  and  was 
fully  shared  by  the  Governor-General.  Several  officers  were  super- 
seded ;  a  strict  blockade  of  the  passes  was  enjoined.  General 
Tombs,  of  Delhi  fame,  was  given  the  command,  and,  in  the  March 
following,  Dewangiri  was  re-occupied  with  as  much  ease  as  it  had 
been  originally  taken  by  us.  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  in  favour  of 
an  advance  on  Panaka,  the  Capital,  in  the  ensuing  cold  weather,  if 
the  Bhotias  should  not,  in  the  meantime,  come  in  to  his  terms,  and 
he  did  not  fail  to  press  his  views  on  the  home  authorities,  and  to 
make  all  preparations  accordingly.  But  the  Bhotias  were  wise  in 
time.  They  surrendered  the  documents  which  had  been  extorted 
from  our  envoy  ;  they  sent  a  written  apology  for  the  insults  which 
they  had  offered  to  him  ;  they  ceded  to  us  the  whole  of  the  Doars 
which  we  had  declared  forfeited  ;  and  promised  to  induce  or  to  com- 
pel the  Tongso  Penlow  to  restore  the  guns  which  he  had  taken.  We, 
in  return,  promised  to  hand  over  a  moiety  of  the  revenue  of  the 
forfeited  Doars  to  the  Bhotia  authorities,  so  long  as  they  should 
conduct  themselves  to  our  satisfaction.  This  concession  was  one 
which  they  had  no  strict  right  to  expect.  But  it  was  dictated  by 
considerations  of  high  policy,  as  well  as  of  humanity  ;  of  high 
policy  because  it  gave  us  a  hold  over  them,  and  the  only  hold  which 
barbarians  are  likely  to  recognise,  by  enlisting  their  interests  on  the 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  409 

side  of  peace  and  order  ;  of  humanity,  because  to  have  taken  away, 
in  its  entirety,  the  richest  part  of  their  country  would  have  com- 
pelled them,  from  stress  of  poverty,  to  recoup  themselves  by  making 
inroads  on  it. 

The  conclusion  of  peace  on  terms  so  moderate  and  so  equitable 
raised  a  howl  from  the  English  press  and  from  the  English  mer- 
chants throughout  India.  Some  of  them  dwelt  on  the  supposed 
loss  of  our  prestige  ;  others  clamoured  for  annexation  ;  others  for 
more  blood  and  more  revenge.  Sir  John  Lawrence,  as  I  have  said 
already,  was  sensitive  enough  to  the  criticisms  of  the  press,  but  to 
all  such  criticisms  as  these  he  turned  a  deaf  ear.  He  had  formu- 
lated his  demands,  after  careful  consideration,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  struggle,  and  now  that  the  struggle  was  over,  and  that  he  had 
gained  all  that  he  wanted,  he  would  not  raise  them  in  the  mere  lux- 
ury of  conquest.  He  would  be  content  with  nothing  less,  but  he 
would  aim  at  nothing  more.  And  in  these  views  he  was  warmly 
supported  by  the  new  Commander-in-Chief,  Sir  William  Mansfield, 
a  statesman  as  well  as  a  soldier,  who  pointed  out  in  an  admirable 
Minute  that  '  to  have  pressed  these  miserable  people,  and  slaugh- 
tered more  of  them  for  the  crime  of  defending  their  homes,  would 
have  exposed  us  hereafter,  even  in  the  opinion  of  those  who  had 
been  most  impatient  at  our  moderation,  to  a  charge  of  inhuman  op- 
pression and  cruelty  !  '  The  arrangements  that  were  made  have 
lasted,  with  slight  modifications,  ever  since,  and  that  too  to  the  sat- 
isfaction of  all  concerned.  Thus  ended  the  Bhotan  war,  satisfac- 
tory, in  the  only  respect  in  which  such  wars  can  ever  be  satisfactory 
— its  early  and  equitable  termination,  and  memorable  for  the  entire 
agreement  between  the  chief  civil  and  military  authorities  as  to 
what  policy  and  justice  demanded. 

The  feeling  of  relief  given  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  Mansfield  to  the  Command  of  the  army  breaks  out  repeat- 
edly in  his  letters.  *  Mansfield  and  I  get  on  very  well  together,  I 
find  him  an  excellent  man  of  business,  prompt,  intelligent,  and 
thoughtful.  I  thank  God  every  day  for  the  change.'  The  climate 
and  scenery  of  Simla  also  contributed  much  to  keep  him  in  good 
health  and  spirits,  and  a  few  words  of  Lady  Lawrence  will  throw 
light  on  the  more  private  side  of  his  life  there. 

There  is  not  much  to  say  about  our  domestic  life  at  Simla.  To  me  it 
seemed  one  long-  round  of  large  dinner  parties,  balls,  and  festivities  ol  all 
kinds.  My  husband  did  not,  at  .Simla,  go  out  for  the  long  early  rides  of 
wiiich  he  had  once  been  so  fond,  and  which  he  still  l<ept  up  when  he  was 
in  Calcutta.      But  he  rose  early,  and  got  through  a  ;:ur  amount  of  work 


4IO  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

before  breakfast ;  and,  in  the  evening  he  either  rode  or  walked  ])y  my  side 
while  I  was  carried  in  a.ja»ipa}i.  We.  never  omitted  having  family  pray- 
ers for  the  household  ;  and  he  and  I  hardly  ever  missed  our  daily  reading 
of  the  Bible  together,  even  when  he  was  at  his  busiest.  His  private  sit- 
ting-room was  near  mine,  so  that  I  was  able  to  be  a  good  deal  with  him.  A 
long-verandah  which  went  all  round  the  house,  and  which  he  called  his 
quarter-deck,  was  a  great  resource  to  him.  For  when  tired  out  with 
work  he  would  walk  up  and  down  it,  enjoying  the  lovely  view,  and  would 
then  go  back,  rested  and  refreshed,  to  his  study.  It  seemed  strange  to 
us  to  be  once  more  together  at  Simla,  for  it  recalled  many  happy  mem- 
ories of  our  early  life  when  we  were  very  small  people  indeed.  But  the 
society  was  much  changed.  Few  of  the  friends  of  those  days  were  left 
and  a  different  generation  had  sprung  up.  He  worked  very  hard,  and  I 
did  not  notice  any  symptom  of  failing  health.  He  was,  I  should  say. 
nearly  as  active  as  ever. 

His  old  Iqve  of  fun  and  his  rough  vein  of  humour  helped  him 
through  many  a  worry  even  now.  A  battle  royal  had  been  raging, 
for  some  time  past,  on  a  subject  of  no  very  great  importance  be- 
tween two  Engineer  officers,  and,  at  last,  the  matter  was  brought 
before  him  for  decision.  There  were  immense  boxes  of  papers 
upon  the  subject,  and  Sir  John  Lawrence  went  at  them,  as  Dr. 
Johnson  used  to  say  he  worked  at  his  Dictionary,  '  doggedly.'  At 
last,  quite  tired  out,  he  said,  '  I  must  get  some  rest  before  I  slave 
any  more  at  these  boxes.  Nobody  but  the  disputants  themselves 
cares  a  halfpenny  which  of  them  is  in  the  right.  But  I  am  bound  to 
go  through  every  one  of  the  papers  carefully.'  So  he  went  out  into 
the  garden,  put  up  two  Aunt  SaUies,  named  one  of  them  Colonel 
— and  the  other  Captain, — had  six  shots  at  each  with  a  pistol, 
knocked  them  both  down,  and  then  saying,  '  How  I  wish  I  could 
finish  their  case  off  as  I  have  finished  them,'  went  back  to  his  boxes 
and  soon  did  finish  it. 

He  often  wound  up  a  more  or  less  serious  discussion  by  a  humor- 
ous remark,  which  left  a  pleasant  flavour  behind.  One  day,  soon 
after  his  arrival  as  Viceroy,  he  was  conversing  with  Sir  Henry 
Maine,  who  was  then  busily  engaged  in  improving  the  administra- 
tion of  justice  and  establishing  new  courts  in  various  parts  of  the 
country.  The  conversation  turned  on  the  Umbeylah  war,  which 
was  just  over.  Sir  John  Lawrence  condemned  it  as  needless.  *I 
would  have  stopped  it,'  he  said,  '  at  once,  had  I  been  Viceroy  at 
the  time.'  'Indeed!'  said  Maine  with  increased  interest,  'how 
would  you  have  managed  it  ? '  'I  would  have  put  down  " a  small 
cause  court "  there,'  replied  the  Governor-General,  and  the  conver- 
sation ended  with  a  hearty  laugh. 


1865-66  THE  VICEROYALTY.  411 

Again,  on  one  occasion,  General  Richard  Strachey  had  drawn  up 
an  elaborate  paper  on  Indian  Railways,  a  subject  of  which  he  was 
an  acknowledged  master,  and  had  brought  it  in  due  course  to  Sir 
John  Lawrence,  that  it  might  receive  his  signature,  become  his 
'  Minute,'  and  be  sent  to  the  Secretary  of  State  in  England.  Sir 
John  glanced  through  it,  made  one  or  two  verbal  alterations,  put 
'begin  '  for  '  commence,'  or  something  equally  important,  and  then, 
as  he  afifixed  the  '  J.L.'  which  was  to  make  it  his,  turned  to  its 
author,  with  a  merry  twinkle  of  his  eye,  and  said,  '  What  a  clever 
chap  they  will  think  me  at  home  ! ' 

He  was  plain  and  blunt  as  ever  in  his  speech,  and  not  least  with 
those  who  applied  to  him  for  appointments  for  which,  they  were  not 
fit,  or  pressed  him  to  do  things  of  which  he  could  not  approve. 
But  his  answer  had  generally  a  dash  of  fun  in  it,  or  was  accom- 
panied by  a  kindly  twinkle  of  the  eye,  which  took  off  its  edge.  A 
new  church  was  being  built  at  Kussowlie,  and  a  great  deal  of  money 
had  been  spent,  and,  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  thought,  wasted,  upon 
its  steeple,  which  was  still  quite  unfinished.  Sir  John,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  on  the  spot,  was  asked  to  subscribe  towards  its  com- 
pletion. He  first  walked  into  the  church,  and  finding  that  nothing 
whatever  had  been  done  towards  seating  it  or  fitting  up  its  interior, 
while  a  very  large  sum  had  been  spent  on  its  spire,  '  You  might  as 
well  ask  me,'  he  said,  'to  subscribe  to  get  a  man  a  hat  w^ho  hasn't 
got  any  breeches  ! ' 

So,  too,  in  his  earlier  life,  when  he  was  working  at  his  hardest  at 
Murri,  a  man  came  up  to  apply  for  an  appointment,  and  being  shown 
into  the  room  in  which  the  Chief  Commissioner  was  working,  began 
by  politely  inquiring  how  Lady  Lawrence  was.  '  Now  you  know,' 
said  Sir  John,  as  he  looked  up  for  one  moment  from  his  papers, 
'  that  you  did  not  come  up  all  the  way  from  Rawul  Pindi  to  ask  me 
how  Lady  Lawrence  was.  What  is  it  you  want  ? '  The  want  was 
stated,  and  the  answer  given  in  the  fewest  possible  words.  *  Now 
then,'  he  said,  '  go  and  ask  Lady  Lawrence  yourself  how  she  is,  and 
stay  to  luncheon.' 

And  so,  once  more,  in  his  later  life  when,  one  Sunday  afternoon, 
a  friend,  who  was  rather  extreme  in  his  political  views,  had  been 
calling  upon  him,  and  had  been  attacking  the  Conservative  Govern- 
ment in  no  measured  terms  for  everything  which  they  had  done,  or 
not  done,  in  the  Russo-Turkish  question,  Sir  John  Lawrence,  who 
was  disposed  to  look  on  both  sides  of  that,  as  of  other  matters,  re- 
marked that  it  was  a  very  complicated  business,  and  that  the  right 
was  not  altogether  on  one  side.     But  he  was  (piite  unable  to  mod- 


412  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

erate  his  friend's  views,  which,  Hke  those  of  many  pohticians  of  the 
time,  were  more  remarkable  for  their  zeal  than  their  knowledge. 
At  last,  just  as  his  visitor  was  leaving  the  room.  Lord  Lawrence 
said,  '  Well,  at  all  events  you  will  admit  that  the  Conservatives  have 
done  one  good  thing  since  they  began  the  Afghan  war.'  'What  is 
that?'  said  the  other,  incredulously.  'Why,  they  have  turned 
Miss  Gaster,' — his  talented  Lady  Secretary,  who  had  held,  and 
who  holds  still,  strong  Tory  views, — 'into  a  good  Liberal.'  His 
visitor  burst  into  a  hearty  laugh  and  went  away  admitting  that 
that  amount  of  good,  at  all  events,  had  come  out  of  the  Govern- 
ment. 

It  was  late  in  the  autumn  of  1865,  after  his  return  to  Calcutta, 
that  the  death  of  his  favourite  sister,  Mrs.  Hayes,  took  place.  It 
was  the  greatest  blow  which  had  ever  fallen,  which  ever  was  to  fall, 
upon  him.  She  had  been  his  adviser  and  friend  through  life.  And 
the  confidence,  the  admiration,  and  the  love  which  he  had  felt  for 
her,  she,  in  her  turn,  had  always  felt  for  him.  'If  I  had  known,' 
he  exclaimed  in  the  first  bitterness  of  his  spirit,  '  that  I  should  not 
see  her  again,  I  would  never  have  come  to  India  as  Viceroy.'  '  When 
I  think,'  he  said,  some  months  afterwards,  in  writing  to  his  sister 
Charlotte, '  of  darling  auntie's  death,  I  cannot  contain  myself.'  She 
left  him  by  her  will  the  little  property  of  Grateley,  in  Salisbury  Plain, 
a  property  which  had  come  to  her  from  her  husband,  and  was  soon 
to  become  known  to  fame,  as  uniting, — the  small  with  the  great, — 
to  make  up  the  title  of  the  first  '  Lord  Lawrence  of  the  Punjab  and 
Grateley.'  She  was  buried  at  Lynton,  in  Devonshire,  where  she 
happened  to  be  staying  at  the  time  of  her  death,  and  a  painted 
window,  erected  to  her  memory  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  in  Southgate 
Church,  bears  an  inscription  written  by  him.  '  She  was  a  noble  and 
loving  woman,  who  from  youth  to  the  last  day  of  her  life  exercised 
a  wonderful  influence  on  all  with  whom  she  was  connected.  This 
tablet  is  erected  to  her  memory  by  her  brother,  Sir  John  Lawrence, 
to  whom  she  is  endeared  by  the  recollections  of  a  lifetime.' 

The  death  of  Mrs.  Hayes  seemed  to  make  the  immediate  return 
of  Lady  Lawrence  to  England  a  matter  of  necessity.  But  the 
prompt  kindness,  first  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Bradley,  who  re- 
ceived all  the  Lawrence  children  into  their  house  for  the  ensuing 
Christmas  holidays,  and  then  of  Sir  Herbert  and  Lady  Edwardes, 
who  undertook  to  occupy  Southgate  House  for  a  year  and  take 
charge  of  them  there,  enabled  Lady  Lawrence  to  choose  once  more 
with  a  clear  conscience  between  the  claims  of  her  husband  and  her 
children,  and  remain  at  her  post  in  India. 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  413 

The  year  closed  (she  writes)  sorrowfully  enough  for  us.  But  whether 
in  grief  or  otherwise,  the  work  had  to  be  done,  and  the  outside  life  of 
entertaining  to  go  on.  This  Christmas  we  passed  quietly  at  Rarrack- 
pore.  But  we  could  not  remain  ther-'=;  long,  as  my  husband  found  it  in- 
convenient for  the  Secretaries  to  be  coming  and  going  between  it  and 
Calcutta.  We  always  enjoyed  our  visits  to  Barrackpore.  Government 
House  was  beautiful  in  itself,  while  the  view  from  the  verandah,  the 
garden,  and  the  park,  with  the  Poinsettia  hedge  on  each  side  of  the  walk 
which  led  down  to  the  river,  all  made  it  additionally  attractive.  We 
used  to  have  excursions  on  the  river,  visit  the  native  schools,  and  call 
on  many  native  ladies  and  gentlemen,  and  everywhere  we  saw  much  to 
interest  and  delight  us.  I  was  generally  sorry  to  return  to  Calcutta. 
For  everything  there  was  more  formal  and  stately.  There  I  could  not 
be  so  much  with  my  husband  while  he  was  at  his  work,  for  Secretaries 
were  always  in  attendance,  as  well  as  gentlemen  coming  for  private 
audiences.  One  of  the  bright  spots  during  our  sojourn  in  Calcutta  was 
the  renewal  of  pleasant  intercourse  with  our  old  Punjab  friends,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Edward  Brandreth.  They  paid  us  a  visit  at  Government  House, 
and  afterwards,  on  Mr.  Brandreth  being  appointed  to  the  Legislative 
Council,  they  took  up  their  residence  in  Calcutta.  My  husband  greatly 
valued  Mrs.  Brandreth's  friendship,  and  always  keenly  enjoyed  a  quiet 
talk  with  her.  This  he  did  up  to  the  very  last ;  for  on  their  return  to 
England,  they  settled  near  us  in  London,  and  were  among  our  dear  and 
valued  friends.  My  husband's  chief  amusement  at  Calcutta  was  a  game 
of  croquet  in  the  garden.  He  entered  into  it  with  wonderful  spirit.  It 
seemed  to  give  him  new  life  after  the  hard  work  of  the  day.  There  was 
often  a  large  party  of  spectators,  and  the  game  was  sometimes  prolonged 
with  great  zest  by  lamplight,  long  after  the  short  twilight  had  vanished. 
But  after  all,  our  hearts  were  not  in  this  kind  of  life.  The  perpetual 
round  of  gaieties,  both  here  and  at  Simla,  though  we  tried  to  vary  them 
by  Shakespeare  readings  and  tableaux,  was  trying  to  us  both. 

In  January  several  changes  took  place  in  the  Viceregal  house- 
hold. Dr.  Hathaway,  Sir  John  Lawrence's  Private  Secretary,  with 
whom  he  had  been  intimate  for  nearly  twenty  years  past,  who  had 
done  much  in  the  Punjab  for  jail  and  sanitary  reform,  and  had  dis- 
charged his  more  recent  duties  with  great  zeal,  energy  and  devotion, 
returned  to  England,  and  was  succeeded  by  James  D.  Gordon  of 
the  Civil  Service,  who  is  now  Sir  James  Gordon,  and  Resident  at 
Mysore.  Captain  Impey,  the  Military  Secretary,  took  another  ap- 
pointment, and  was  succeeded  by  the  present  Sir  Seymour  Blane, 
who,  like  Colonel  Randall,  had  been  aide-de-camp  to  John  Nichol- 
son at  Delhi. 

In  the  following  month,  an  important  change  took  place  in  the 
ofificial  relations  of  the  Governor-General.     For  Sir  Charles  Wood 


414  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

retired  in  ill-health  from  the  India  Office,  and  was  called  to  the 
Upper  House  with  the  title  of  Lord  Halifax.  Sir  Charles  Wood 
had  never  been  popular  in  certain  circles,  especially  in  those  which 
were  most  affected  by  his  reforms.  But  India  has  never  had  a 
better  Secretary  of  State.  His  measures  were  highly  appreciated 
by  the  Civil  Service,  and  the  natives  of  India  honoured  him  for  the 
courageous  stand  which  he  had  made  against  European  influence 
during  the  indigo  disturbances.  A  man  of  great  abihty,  he  had 
never  shirked  work,  and  had  carried  through  many  measures  of  the 
first  importance  and  with  a  single  eye  to  the  public  good.  He  had 
always  taken  pains  to  select  the  best  man  for  every  appointment 
great  and  small,  and  he  deserved  no  small  credit  for  breaking 
through  all  considerations  of  precedent,  and  choosing  for  the  post 
of  Governor-General  a  man  whom,  under  the  circumstances,  he 
thought  to  be  the  best  possible  man  to  fill  it.  The  differences  of 
opinion  between  him  and  Sir  John  Lawrence  in  their  new  relation 
had  been  very  slight,  considering  that  each  had  decided  views,  that 
each  was  of  a  somewhat  autocratic  temperament,  and  that  each  had 
a  great  knowledge  of  India,  gathered,  in  the  one  case,  from  long 
official  duties  in  the  India  Office,  in  the  other,  from  a  vast  personal 
experience  on  Indian  soil.  Sir  Charles  Wood,  in  announcing  his 
resignation  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  on  February  19,  1S66,  said  : — 

It  is,  as  you  may  well  believe,  a  great  pang  separating  myself  from  all 
my  old  friends  and  colleagues  in  the  Cabinet  and  in  the  Council,  and 
giving  up  all  my  official  occupation  and  ceasing  to  have  part  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  India,  in  which  I  take  so  deep  an  interest.  But  I  could  not 
safely  run  the  risk,  and  I  believe  that  I  have  acted  wisely.  It  is  done, 
and  Lord  de  Grey  succeeds  me.  He  is,  as  you  know,  conversant  with 
our  business.  A  great  friend  of  mine,  Mr.  Stansfeld,  becomes  Under- 
Secretary,  so  that  I  could  not  leave  the  office  in  hands  more  satisfactory 
or  agreeable  to  myself.  So  much  for  home  matters.  Nor  can  I  say  that 
my  regret  is  diminished  as  to  India.  I  am  sorry,  very  sorry,  not  to  con- 
tinue to  share  with  you  the  responsibility  and  care  of  the  Government  of 
India.  W^e  differed  very  little  in  anything,  and  it  was  a  great  satisfaction 
dealing  with  so  honest  and  straightforward  a  person  as  you  are.  How- 
ever, I  could  not  help  myself;  and  I  can  only  assure  you  of  my  un- 
diminished interest  both  in  your  Government  and  in  Indian  affairs.  I 
am  going  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and  if  I  can  ever  render  you  or  your 
Government  any  service,  you  may  be  quite  sure  that  I  shall  do  so  with 
very  great  pleasure. 

A  special  interest  attaches  to  the  first  letter  written  to  Sir  John 
Lawrence  by  Lord  de  Grey  in  view  of  the  position  to  which  he  has 


1865-66  THE  VICEROYALTY.  4^5 

lately  attained,  and  is,  at  this  moment,  so  worthily  filling  as  Gov- 
ernor-General of  India.     I  quote  therefore  a  few  words  from  it. 

When  Sir  Charles  determined  to  resign,  Lord  Russell  requested  me  to 
become  his  successor,  and  although  1  was  very  conscious  of  the  great 
responsibilities  which  attach  to  the  office,  and  of  the  difficulty  of  follow- 
ing such  a  Secretary  of  State  as  Sir  Charles  Wood  had  been,  I  still  felt 
it  was  my  duty  to  acquiesce  in  the  arrangement  which  the  Head  of  the 
Government  considered  to  be  the  best  that  he  could  make.  I  therefore 
now  write  to  you  as  Secretary  of  State  for  India,  and  I  have,  in  the  first 
place,  to  request  you  to  communicate  with  me  on  all  questions  as  fully 
and  freely  as  you  have  hitherto  done  with  Sir  Charles.  I  shall  stand  in 
greater  need  than  he  did  of  your  advice  ;  and  you  will  always  find  it  my 
anxious  wish  to  give  you  every  support  in  my  power  in  the  arduous 
duties  of  the  great  post  which  you  so  worthily  fill.  I  hope  that  you  saw 
enough  of  me,  when  we  were  together  at  the  India  Office,  to  know  that 
I  feel  a  deep  interest  in  Indian  questions,  and  in  the  welfare  of  the  popula- 
tions for  whose  good  government  and  prosperity  we  are  responsible. 
And  I  can  assure  you  that  it  is  an  immense  satisfaction  to  me  to  know 
that  the  principles  on  which  I  should  desire  to  see  the  administration  of 
India  conducted,  are  those  by  which  you,  as  Governor-General,  are  con- 
stantly guided. 

I  have  quoted  in  a  previous  chapter  Lord  Ripon's  pleasant  record 
of  the  impressions  made  upon  him  by  John  Lawrence  at  an  earlier 
period  of  his  career  ;  and  the  letters  which  passed  between  the  two 
men  in  their  new  relations  are  exactly  what  might  have  been  ex- 
pected from  that  record.  But  the  connection  lasted  only  for  a  very 
short  time.  For  in  the  following  June  the  Liberal  Government  was 
defeated  in  its  efforts  to  pass  a  Reform  Bill  ;  the  Conservatives  suc- 
ceeded to  office,  and  Lord  de  Grey  made  way  for  Lord  Cranborne. 
The  new  Secretary  of  State  threw  himself  into  his  work,  as  Sir 
John  Lawrence  always  felt  and  said,  with  the  greatest  energy  and 
success.  But  he,  in  his  turn,  made  way,  in  less  than  a  year,  for  Sir 
Stafford  Northcote.  The  relations  between  the  Governor-General 
and  each  of  these  successive  Secretaries  of  State  were  most  frank 
and  cordial.  The  Foreign  Policy  adopted  by  Sir  John  Lawrence, 
and  to  be  described  hereafter,  was  as  heartily  approved  in  those 
days  by  Lord  Cranborne  and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  as  by  Sir 
Charles  Wood  and  Lord  de  Grey.  But  the  frequent  change  of  the 
Secretary  of  State — four  of  them  in  little  more  than  a  year — implied 
an  immense  increase  of  work  and  explanation  on  the  part  of  the 
more  permanent  Governor-General,  and  could  not  but  retard  pro- 
gression in  India. 


4l6  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

The  whole  year  (1866)  was  a  gloomy  one.  There  were  great 
commercial  disasters,  a  complete  stagnation  of  trade,  an  appalling 
famine  in  one  province,  and  a  serious  scarcity  in  several  others.  I 
must  say  a  few  words  on  each  of  these  subjects. 

For  some  years  past  a  spirit  of  wild  and  reckless  speculation  had, 
more  or  less,  infected  all  classes  in  India,  and  now  it  was  followed 
by  the  inevitable  reaction.  Colossal  fortunes  made  by  gambling 
are  generally  followed  by  colossal  failures,  which,  unfortunately, 
do  not  always  fall  upon  the  gamblers  themselves  in  exact  propor- 
tion to  their  folly  or  their  guilt.  Calcutta  itself  had  not  been  alto- 
gether free  from  the  epidemic.  Even  there,  vast  reclamation  and 
irrigation  schemes  had  been  started,  in  which  enterprising  merchants 
and  adventurous  speculators  had  done  their  best  to  entangle  the 
Government.  But  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  held  his  hand  ;  and,  as 
the  papers  before  me  show,  had  encountered  much  unpopularity  in 
the  process.  But  it  was  in  Bombay  that  the  mania  reached  its 
height.  Owing  to  the  American  War,  vast  quantities  of  cotton  had 
been  exported  to  England  during  the  last  two  years  from  its  spa- 
cious and  expansive  harbours  ;  and  by  their  own  admission,  the 
Bombay  authorities  were  completely  carried  away  by  the  torrent. 
Bubble  companies  were  started  by  the  hundred,  the  shares  in  which 
went  up  to  fabulous  amounts.  But  like  bubbles,  one  after  another 
they  burst,  bringing  upon  all  connected  with  them,  not  only  ruin 
but  often  also  shame  and  disgrace.  The  heir  of  the  famous  Parsee 
baronet,  Sir  Jamsetjee  Jeejeebhoy,  the  Rothschild  of  Bombay, 
failed  for  half  a  million  of  money.  The  hardly  less  famous  Hindu 
millionaire.  Prince  Chund  Roychund,  failed  for  over  two  millions. 
And,  unfortunately,  the  Bank  of  Bombay,  which  might  have  done 
much  to  check  the  mischief,  and  which  had,  among  its  Directors, 
nominees  of  the  Bombay  Government,  did  its  best,  in  spite  of 
earnest  and  reiterated  warnings  from  Calcutta,  by  reckless  gam- 
bling to  foster  and  to  spread  it.  And  now,  throughout  India  and 
England,  disaster  followed  upon  disaster.  The  failures  of  the  '  Com- 
mercial Bank  '  of  Bombay,  of  the  famous  House  of  Overend  and 
Gurney,  and,  worst  of  all  perhaps  for  India,  of  the  Agra  Bank — 
the  bank  in  which  the  little  all  of  so  many  widows  and  orphans  of 
Anglo-Indians  were  deposited — followed  one  another  in  melancholy 
and  startling  succession.  But  the  worst  offender  of  all,  the  Bombay 
Bank,  still  held  its  own — though  with  a  loss  of  half  its  capital — 
still  plunging  itself  and  others,  in  spite  of  all  that  remonstrances 
from  the  Governor-General,  and  urgent  requests  both  by  telegram 
and  letter  for  information  could  do,  more  deeply  into  the  mire  ;  till 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  417 

at  last  it  fell,  deep  alike  in  ruin  and  in  guilt,  the  full  dimensions  of 
which  were  only  to  be  revealed  by  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  which 
an  outraged  people  demanded,  and  at  last  succeeded  in  obtaining. 

The  story  of  the  Orissa  famine  is  equally  gloomy  ;  all  the  more 
so  from  the  fact  that  the  appalling  loss  of  life  ^vhich  took  place 
might  have  been,  in  great  measure,  lessened,  if  not  altogether  pre- 
vented, had  the  local  authorities, — that  is  to  say,  the  Board  of  Reve- 
nue at  Calcutta  and  the  Government  of  Bengal, — opened  their  eyes 
to  the  danger  in  time.  I  will  first  sketch  the  facts  of  the  famine  in 
outline,  and  then  endeavour  to  show  the  part  borne  by  Sir  John 
Lawrence  himself  and  the  share  of  the  responsibility  which  falls 
upon  his  shoulders. 

To  the  South-West  of  Calcutta  there  is  a  long,  narrow,  low-lying 
tract  of  seaboard,  which  stretches  away  to  the  northernmost  point 
of  the  Madras  Presidency.  It  is  a  region  cut  off  by  Nature,  to  an 
extraordinary  degree,  from  all  intercourse  with  the  outer  world. 
Behind  it,  and  separating  it  from  Northern  and  Central  India,  lies 
a  broad  belt  of  inaccessible  hills  and  jungles.  In  front,  along  its 
little  known,  surf  beaten  shore,  rages  a  veritable  '  Oceanus  dissocia- 
bilis,'  which,  during  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  forbids  all  ap- 
proach ;  and,  even  during  the  calmer  season,  few  vessels  find  it 
worth  their  while  to  visit  the  one  obscure  harbour  at  False  Point. 
The  huge  river  Mahanuddy,  which  bisects  the  country  and  pours 
its  waters  by  many  mouths  into  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  is  useless,  like 
many  of  the  larger  rivers  of  India,  for  purposes  of  navigation,  and 
is  liable  to  sudden  floods  of  extraordinary  volume  and  destructive 
power.  The  other  rivers,  when  they  are  in  flood,  form,  with  the 
mouths  of  the  Mahanuddy,  one  huge  delta.  But,  during  the  rest 
of  the  year,  like  the  Wadys  of  Arabic-speaking  countries,  they 
shrink  into  dry  or  almost  dry  watercourses,  which  only  serve  to  in- 
terrupt all  inland  communication  ;  for  the  one  road  which  traverses 
the  country  lengthways,  and  so  connects  it  with  Calcutta,  has  to 
cross  them  as  best  it  may.  It  is  a  track  rather  than  a  road,  which, 
in  the  best  of  seasons,  hardly  admits  of  the  passing  of  wheels,  and, 
when  the  weather  is  bad,  is  impassable  even  by  the  pack  mules,  on 
which  the  traffic  of  the  country,  such  as  it  is,  depends.  Rice  is  the 
staple  crop  of  the  whole,  and  if  rain  does  not  fall  at  the  proper  sea- 
son, the  rice  crop  must  fail,  and  with  it  everything.  The  people 
are  poverty  stricken,  ignorant,  indolent,  improvident.  Unless, 
therefore,  great  efforts,  not  strictly  limited  by  the  laws  of  political 
economy,  are  made  by  their  rulers  in  time  of  scarcity,  they  die  by 
thousands.  *  Shut  up,'  so  the  report  of  the  Famine  Commission 
VOL.  II. — 27 


41 8  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

well  expresses  it,  'between  pathless  jungles  and  an  impracticable 
sea,  they  are  in  the  position  of  passengers  in  a  ship  without  pro- 
visions.' 

In  the  autumn  of  1865  the  rain  had  ceased  prematurely,  through- 
cut  the  Lower  Provinces  of  Bengal,  in  Orissa,  and  in  parts  of  the 
Madras  Presidency.  Scarcity,  therefore,  if  not  actual  want,  was  a 
too  probable  contingency.  How  was  this  danger  dealt  with  by  the 
local  authorities,  who  were  bound  by  personal  investigation  to  get 
at  the  facts  of  the  case,  to  provide  such  remedies  as  lay  within 
their  power,  and  then  to  apply  at  once  to  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment for  other  remedies  which  lay  beyond  it  ?  The  evidence  col- 
lected by  the  Famine  Commission  under  the  Presidency  of  Sir 
George  Campbell  ;  the  exhaustive  and  judicial  report  which  summed 
it  up  ;  and  the  Minutes  written  thereon  by  the  Supreme  Government 
and  by  Sir  John  Lawrence,  make  it  painfully  evident  that  while 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  humanity  of  anyone  concerned, 
there  was  only  one  single  person  in  Orissa  who  was  clothed  with 
any  authority,  and  he  only  with  a  very  subordinate  authority,  who 
kept  his  eyes  open,  and  did  his  duty  at  a  time  when  it  was  not  too 
late  to  guard  against  the  worst.  Unfortunately,  even  he  had  been 
browbeaten  into  silence  for  a  short  period  by  the  rebukes  of  his 
superiors,  men  who  shut  their  eyes  to  the  facts — while  the  jails 
were  filling  with  natives  whose  one  crime  was  their  attempt  to  as- 
suage the  pangs  of  hunger  in  the  way  that  lay  nearest  to  them — 
who  refused  to  adopt  the  only  adequate  remedies,  and  went  on 
talking  about  political  economy,  while  a  terrible  scarcity  was  being 
converted,  by  their  neglect,  into  wholesale  starvation. 

As  ill-luck  would  have  it,  no  one  of  the  officers  in  Orissa  had 
had  any  special  experience  in  dealing  with  famines,  and  Sir  Cecil 
Beadon,  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Bengal,  who  had  passed  his 
official  life  in  the  Secretary's  office,  had  never  been  brought  into 
personal  contact  with  the  hard  facts  of  native  life.  And  this 
excuse,  such  as  it  is,  must  be  remembered  throughout  in  their  fa- 
vour. Barlow,  the  Collector  at  Puri,  the  one  man  who  was  alive  to 
the  danger,  reported  faithfully  what  he  had  seen  and  heard  to  his 
immediate  superior,  Ravenshaw,  the  Commissioner.  But  Raven- 
shaw  took  a  more  sanguine  view,  and  passed  on  his  watered  version 
of  Barlow's  alarming  reports,  sometimes  direct  to  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  but  more  often  to  the  Board  of  Revenue  at  Calcutta, 
an  intermediate  body,  which  seems  throughout  to  have  done  almost 
everything  which  it  ought  not  to  have  done,  and  hardly  anything 
which  it  was  necessary  to   do.     A  request  of  Barlow's  that  some 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  419 

remission  of  taxation  should  be  granted  to  the  distressed  districts 
received  a  sharp  rebuke  from  them.  All  inquiry  into  the  subject 
was  forbidden  ;  and  the  proposal  that  Government  should  itself 
import  rice  was  scouted  '  as  a  breach  of  the  laws  of  political  econ- 
omy.' They  did  indeed  advise  that  relief  works  should  be  instituted 
on  a  small  scale,  but  recommended  that  private  charity  should  be 
left  to  do  all  the  rest.  They  forgot  that  people  cannot  work  on 
empty  stomachs,  and  that  money  will  not  keep  off  starvation  when 
there  is  no  food  to  get  with  it.  These  facts  were  pressed  upon 
them  earnestly,  in  reiterated  telegrams  and  letters  by  Ravenshaw, 
who  had  at  length  caught  the  alarm  from  Barlow.  But  once  more 
the  laws  of  political  economy  were  flourished  in  the  faces  of  those 
who  knew  the  facts,  and  the  scarcity  was  left  to  do  its  work. 

But  one  chance  still  remained.  Actual  starvation  had  not  yet 
begun,  and  in  February,  1866,  by  the  special  request  of  the  Gov- 
ernor-General, Beadon  went  down  to  Orissa,  that  he  might  have  a 
chance  of  seeing  with  his  own  eyes,  and  hearing  with  his  own  ears, 
what  the  real  condition  of  the  province  was.  He  came.  He  saw. 
He  returned.  He  was  accompanied  by  a  member  of  the  Board  of 
Revenue,  and  though  it  was  well  known  that  the  East  India  Irriga- 
tion Company  had  been  obliged  to  import  rice  to  feed  their  work- 
men for  a  month  past,  the  two  inquirers  still  saw  only  what  they 
wished  to  see,  and  heard  only  what  they  wished  to  hear  ;  that  is, 
what  chimed  in  with  their  own  previous  opinions.  We  may  well 
wonder  how  this  was  possible  ;  but  the  explanation  is  only  too  sim- 
ple. The  energetic  representations  of  Barlow,  as  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote  well  puts  it,  '  filtered  through  the  medium  of  an  incred- 
ulous Commissioner,  and  a  still  more  incredulous  Board,  had  lost 
all  their  flavour  by  the  time  that  they  reached  the  ears  of  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  at  Calcutta.'  The  Board  and  the  Commis- 
sioner supported  one  another  in  their  incredulity,  and  of  course 
received  the  support  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  who,  being  in  ill- 
health  himself,  was  only  too  ready  to  believe  those  who  said  that 
no  special  exertion  was  necessary.  Little  wonder  that,  on  his  ar- 
rival in  Orissa,  the  poor  Collector  and  his  brother  officers  found 
themselves  overwhelmed  by  the  mass  of  authority  arrayed  against 
them,  and  learned  to  hold  their  tongues,  or,  at  most,  to  speak  in 
whispers  only.  The  Lieutenant-Governor,  as  though  to  add  one 
touch  more  to  the  ghastliness  of  the  tragedy  which  was  preparing, 
held  several  durbars  and  levees,  entered  into  a  few  desultory  con- 
versations about  the  scarcity,  and,  after  a  stay  of  a  few  days,  re- 
turned to  Calcutta,  and  assured   Sir  John  Lawrence,  in  the  most 


420  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

positive  manner,  that  his  anxieties  were  groundless,  and  that  there 
was  grain  enough  in  the  country  to  last  till  next  harvest. 

Thus  reassured,  the  Governor-General  left  Calcutta.  The  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor went  off,  in  like  manner,  to  Darjeeling.  And,  in- 
credible as  it  may  seem,  from  February  to  June,  while  people  were 
already  dying  of  starvation  in  large  numbers,  not  one  single  report 
as  to  the  state  of  Orissa  was  made  by  the  Bengal  to  the  Supreme 
Government  except  when  it  was  pressed  for  ;  and,  even  then,  it 
was  always  of  a  reassuring  character.  At  last  a  letter  entitled,  '.The 
Starving  Poor  of  Orissa,'  which  had  been  written  from  Calcutta  on 
April  25  to  *  The  Englishman,'  happened,  on  May  10,  to  catch  the 
Governor-General's  eye.  Its  statements  were  confirmed  by  a  pri- 
vate note  from  Mr.  Moncrieff,  a  philanthropic  member  of  a  mer- 
chant's firm  at  Calcutta,  to  Dr.  Farquhar,  the  Viceroy's  private 
physician.  Sir  John  Lawrence  took  alarm,  telegraphed  to  Beadon 
demanding  definite  information,  placed  the  surplus  of  the  North- 
Western  Famine  Fund  at  his  disposal,  told  him  that  this  would  be 
followed  up,  if  necessary,  by  the  whole  available  resources  of  the 
Government,  and  begged  him  to  go  down  at  once  to  Calcutta, 
and  do  all  he  could  do  towards  pouring  provisions  into  the  starv- 
ing province.  Beadon,  after  a  very  short  stay  in  Calcutta,  returned 
to  Darjeeling.  But  there  was  henceforward  no  lack  of  energy  on 
the  part  of  the  local  authorities.  By  September,  when  the  distress 
was  at  its  height,  270,000  men,  women,  and  children  were  being 
fed  daily  at  the  Relief  Houses,  and,  for  many  months  to  come, 
everything  that  could  be  done  to  stem  the  appalling  magnitude  of 
the  visitation  was  done.  But  on  every  measure  of  relief  there 
seemed  to  be  written  the  fatal  words,'  Too  late,'  and  it  was  estimated 
that,  from  first  to  last,  not  less  than  a  fourth  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion of  the  province,  not  less,  that  is,  than  a  million  of  souls,  perished 
by  the  most  horrible  of  deaths  ! 

And  now  comes  the  question  with  which  this  biography  is  more 
particularly  concerned,  what  was  the  part  borne  by  Sir  John  Law- 
rence in  this  melancholy  business,  and  how  far  did  he  fail  to  do 
anything  that  could  fairly  be  expected  of  him  ?  The  Government 
of  India,  it  must  be  remembered  at  the  outset,  is,  except  in  its  for- 
eign relations,  one  of  ^q-enera/  supervision  and  control.  It  interferes 
very  little  in  the  details  of  the  subordinate  governorships,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  it  is  impossible  for  it  to  have  any  adequate 
knowledge  of  them.  It  depends  upon  its  responsible  agents,  the 
Governors,  Lieutenant-Governors,  and  Chief  Commissioners,  to 
furnish   it  with   the   necessary  information   on  matters  of  imperial 


i86s-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  421 

importance,  and  on  this  information  it  decides.  The  jealousy  feit 
at  any  interference  in  details  on  the  part  of  the  Governor-General 
is  sufficiently  keen  even  in  the  more  remote  Presidencies.  But  in 
the  Presidency  of  Bengal,  partly  owing  to  its  close  proximity  to  the 
seat  of  the  Imperial  Government,  partly  to  its  general  history,  and 
partly  also  to  the  character  of  its  successive  governors,  the  feeling 
tends  to  be  keener  still.  The  friction  between  the  two  Governments 
has  been  notoriously  great,  even  when  the  wheels  have  been  most 
scrupulously  oiled  on  both  sides.  Now  that  Sir  John  Lawrence  went 
considerably  beyond  what  most  Governors-General  would  have  felt 
justified  in  doing,  in  the  way  of  suggestion  and  of  suspicion,  might 
be  gathered  even  from  the  foregoing  narrative.  But  I  am  able  to 
give  a  more  circumstantial  account  of  the  part  borne  by  him  from 
the  pen  of  Dr.  Farquhar,  a  member  of  his  Staff,  who  has  always 
been  known  for  his  active  philanthropy,  and  was  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case.  This  account, 
supplemented  by  a  few  quotations  from  Sir  John  Lawrence's  own 
letters  to  Lord  Cranborne  and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  will  enable 
the  reader  to  judge  for  himself  how  far,  if  at  all,  he  failed  in  his 
duty. 

On  November  l,  1865  (says  Dr.  Farquhar),  late  in  the  evening',  my 
friend,  Mr.  Scott-Moncrieff,  a  partner  in  the  firm  of  Gisborne  &  Co., 
merchants  in  Calcutta,  called  at  my  rooms  in  Government  House,  and, 
in  his  own  earnest  manner,  spoke  anxiously  of  a  threatened  famine  in 
Orissa,  where  he  had  some  missionary  friends.  He  pointed  out  the  de- 
sirability of  Government  purchasing  rice  and  sending  it  to  that  district  ; 
for  he  felt  sure  from  the  scantiness  of  the  rainfall  that  there  would  be 
famine  in  that  part  of  the  country  not  many  months  hence.  He  had  pre- 
pared a  memorandum  on  a  small  slip  of  paper,  showing  the  high  and 
increasing  price  of  rice  in  Orissa,  and  the  low  price  of  the  same  in 
Burmah.  It  showed  also  how  cheaply  grain  could,  at  that  time,  be 
transported  to  the  suffering  districts.  And,  in  the  name  of  his  firm,  he 
offered  to  act  gratuitously  for  Government  in  buying  rice  and  arranging 
for  its  transshipment  to  Orissa. 

Believing  MoncriefTs  sources  of  information  to  be  good,  I  did  not 
hesitate  to  take  the  memorandum  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  at  once,  as  I 
knew  he  would  gladly  hear  of  a  proposition  for  the  relief  of  distress 
wherever  it  might  be.  He  read  the  memorandum  just  before  going  to 
dinner  at  eight  o'clock,  and  told  me  to  go  back  to  my  room  and  tell 
Uloncrieff,  whom  he  knew  and  valued  much,  that  the  subject  should  have 
his  best  attention. 

I  noticed  that  he  was  very  silent  and  thoughtful  at  dinner,  but  he  did 
not  refer  to  the  subject  that  evening.  He  ordered  his  carriage  instead 
of  his  riding  horse  to  be  at  the  door  next  morning,  and  at  about  half-past 


422  LIFP:   of    lord    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

five  A.  M.  he  left  to  make  an  official  call  on  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of 
Bengal,  who  lived  three  miles  off  at  Alipore. 

After  breakfast  he  called  me  aside,  and  said  he  had  seen  the  Lieuten- 
ant-Governor on  the  subject  of  Moncrieff 's  memorandum,  and  had  been 
assured  by  him  that  there  was  no  urgent  official  report  from  Orissa  such 
as  would  warrant  the  action  proposed  by  Moncrieff,  but  that  he  would  at 
once  communicate  with  the  local  officers,  and  receive  from  them  the 
latest  information. 

That  information  came,  and  Lord  Lawrence's  anxieties  were  quieted 
by  the  positive  assurance  that  there  was  plenty  of  grain  in  the  country, 
and  that  the  native  dealers  were  quite  able  to  supply  grain  to  the  people 
through  the  usual  channels  of  commercial  enterprise.  Relying  on  this 
assurance  from  what  should  have  been  the  most  dependable  source  of 
information,  the  Viceroy  went  to  Simla,  and  no  evil  rumour  reached  him 
on  the  subject  till  the  loth  of  May.  On  that  day  I  received  a  private 
note  from  Moncrieff,  enclosing  an  official  letter  which  he  had  written  in 
the  name  of  his  firm,  Gisborne  and  Co.,  to  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of 
Bengal. 

In  his  private  note  he  urged  me  to  lay  the  official  letter  immediately 
before  Sir  John  Lawrence,  as  no  time  was  to  be  .lost,  and  he  was  not 
sure  that  the  Government  of  Bengal  would  take  such  immediate  notice 
of  it  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  would. 

I  went  directly  to  Peterhoff,  and  found  Sir  John  alone.  He  read  the 
letter,  and  was  deeply  stirred  by  its  contents.  He  immediately  ordered 
a  messenger  to  take  a  note  to  Grey,  the  member  of  Council  in  the  Home 
Department,  desiring  him  to  come  to  Peterhoff.  Grey,  at  that  time,  held 
very  strongly  to  the  belief  that  the  proper  way  to  deal  with  what  was  still 
thought  to  be  only  a  scarcity,  was  to  leave  commerce  to  do  all  that  was 
required.  But  Sir  John  Lawrence  instinctively  saw  that  not  a  moment 
was  to  be  lost,  and  that  further  argument  about  political  economy  was 
but  w'asting  precious  time. 

He  therefore  instructed  Grey  to  telegraph  at  once  to  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  Bengal,  offering  a  supply  of  funds  for  use  in  the  distressed 
districts.  On  receiving  this  the  Lieutenant-Governor  issued  orders  for 
the  purchase  of  grain  inBurmah.  Moncrieff,  at  his  request,  immediately 
chartered  a  vessel,  but  a  few  days'  delay  on  the  part  of  the  shipper 
rendered  this  prompt  action  unavailable.  For  the  vessel,  when  it  arrived 
on  the  coast  of  Orissa,  was  met  by  the  monsoon  which  had  burst  forth 
with  its  usual  violence.  Starving  thousands  saw  the  bread  laden  ship 
struggling  with  the  waves  outside  the  bar  ;  and,  for  four  months,  no  liv- 
ing soul  could  open  communications  between  her  and  the  shore.  The 
suffering,  as  you  know,  was  great,  and  no  one  felt  more  for  the  poor 
starving  people  than  Lord  Lawrence,  whose  heart  and  head  were  ever 
exercised  in  the  earnest  effort  to  do  all  he  could  for  the  people  of  India. 

It  has  been  asked,  and  naturally  enough,  first,  why  Sir  John  Law 
rence  did  not  take  matters  into  his  own  hands,  and  with  or  without 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  423 

the  consent  of  his  Council,  order  the  importation  of  rice  at  all 
hazards  into  Orissa,  when  the  news  of  the  danger  first  reached  him  ; 
and,  secondly,  why  he  did  not  supersede  Beadon  when  he  found 
how  grossly  he  had  failed  in  the  obvious  duty  of  discovering  the 
true  facts  of  the  case,  and  of  reporting  fully  even  such  facts  as  he 
did  know  to  the  Supreme  Government  ?  Happy  indeed  it  would 
have  been  had  Sir  John  Lawrence  acted  on  his  own  sound  instincts 
in  the  m.atter  of  importation,  and  overruled  his  Council,  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of  Bengal,  the  Board  of  Revenue,  and  all  the 
authorities  arrayed  against  him  !  But,  in  so  saying,  we  ^re  judging 
by  the  result,  and  in  the  light  of  facts,  many  of  which  were  not 
brought  to  light  except  by  a  laborious  investigation  on  the  spot 
some  months  after  the  famine  was  over.  A  statesman  must  be 
judged  by  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  by  the  facts  that  he  knew 
or  could  know,  and  not  by  those  which  he  could  not,  and  a  few 
(juotations  from  his  letters  to  successive  Secretaries  of  State  will 
throw  light  upon  the  difficulties  which  surrounded  him. 

Here  are  some  remarks  upon  Beadon,  written  to  Lord  Cranborne 
on  October  iS,  1866,  before,  that  is,  the  facts  of  the  famine  or  the 
extent  of  his  responsibility  for  it  could  be  fully  known. 

I  think  that  the  excitement  at  home  against  Sir  Cecil  Beadon  is,  as  you 
say  in  your  letter  of  the  i6th  September,  somewhat  unreasonable.  A 
j^reat  deal  has  been  done  to  mitigate  the  effects  of  the  drought.  But 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  the  Board  of  Revenue, 
and  the  local  officers  neither  foresaw  the  famine  and  scarcity  which  were 
coming  on,  nor  would  admit  them  when  pointed  out  by  others.  So  early 
as  the  end  of  March,  at  the  instance  of  some  of  the  merchants  in  Cal- 
cutta, I  pressed  Sir  Cecil  Beadon  very  strongly  on  the  subject,  and  urged 
him  to  direct  the  importation  of  grain  into  Cuttack  and  Orissa  from  the 
Burmah  coast.  The  local  officers  would  not  admit  that  there  was  not 
ample  grain  stored  in  the  province  ;  and  when  this  became  no  longer  a 
matter  of  doubt,  the  delay  and  difficulties  which  occurred  were  consid- 
erable. There  were  no  boats  on  the  coast  suited  to  land  the  grain  in 
bad  weather,  and  so  on.  In  like  manner,  I  could  not  induce  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor to  call  a  meeting,  and  ask  for  private  subscriptions,  or 
to  allow  any  non-official  people  to  be  on  the  Committee  in  Calcutta.  The 
first  measure  he  objected  to,  owing,  perhaps,  to  the  general  distress 
arising  from  the  state  of  mercantile  affairs,  from  which  he  argued  that 
we  should  get  little  or  nothing  from  the  public.  I  ought  perhai)s  to  have 
insisted  on  more  being  done.  But  I  tried  to  carry  the  local  authorities 
with  me.  The  consequence  of  these  mistakes  has  been  that  a  great  and 
unreasonable  outcry  has  been  raised.  Sir  Cecil  Beadon  is  in  bad  health, 
and,  ever  since  the  beginning  of  last  year,  has  been  unable  to  stay  in 
Calcutta.     When    the    distress    became    palpable   and  his    presence    in 


424  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

Calcutta  seemed  of  much  importance,  he  at  once  went  down,  at  my 
suggestion,  and  stayed  there  until  ordered  away  by  the  medical  autiiori- 
ties.  ...  I  pressed  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  from  first  to  last,  to  do  all 
that  was  necessary,  and  though  he  was  slow  to  see  that  so  much  was 
required,  he  has  done  very  much  more  than  he  has  credit  for. 

Another  letter  to  Lord  Cranborne  of  December  6,  written  also 
before  the  report  of  the  Famine  Commission  had  come  out,  adds  a 
few  personal  details,  and  is,  like  the  last,  certainly  not  deficient  in 
generosity  to  Beadon. 

So  far  back  as  November  and  December,  we  were  aware  of  the  failure 
of  last  year's  crops.  We  had  heard  that  a  grave  scarcity  was  antici- 
pated. I  urged  the  Lieutenant-Governor  to  active  measures,  such  as 
the  importation  of  grain.  But  he,  resting  on  local  information,  objected 
to  act,  and  the  views  of  the  Council  generally  were  with  him.  I  might, 
and,  perhaps  ought  to  have  over-ruled  them,  and  insisted  on  prompt 
action,  and  I  blame  myself  for  not  so  doing.  But  all  local  data  and  in- 
formation and  authority  were  against  me,  and  believing  that,  if  matters 
did  get  worse,  we  should  still  have  time  to  do  what  was  necessary,  I  left 
the  matter  in  the  hands  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor.  The  severity  of  the 
distress  came  to  light  all  at  once,  and  it  was  then  only  that  the  difficulty 
of  throwing  in  supplies  became  apparent.  Inundation  followed  the 
failure  of  the  crops  and  intensified  the  misfortunes  of  the  unhappy  peo- 
ple. When  the  Lieutenant-Governor  saw  that  aid  on  a  large  scale  was 
necessary,  he  did  all  that  it  was  in  his  power  to  do.  But  the  time  for 
action  had,  to  a  great  extent,  gone  by. 

Here  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  to  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  who 

succeeded  Lord  Cranborne  : — 

April  22,  1867. 

The  Report  of  the  Commissioners  on  the  Orissa  famine  goes  home  by 
the  outgoing  mail,  with  all  the  papers  connected  with  it.  In  addition  to 
the  despatch  from  the  Government  of  India  I  have  sent  a  Minute  of  my 
own.  It  has  been  a  sad  affair.  The  weak  point,  as  regards  the  Gov- 
ernment of  India,  is,  no  doubt,  the  circumstance  that  we  did  not  interfere 
early  in  the  day,  and  insist  on  the  Lieutenant-Governor  importing  food. 
I  myself  wished  to  do  so  simply  as  a  measure  of  security.  But  my 
Council  was  against  me,  and  I  had  no  data  which  would  have  warranted 
my  over-ruling  them.  No  doubt  I  ought  to  have  done  this  irrespective 
of  all  considerations.  But  it  is  difficult  to  act  decisively  when  there  is 
no  certainty  what  may  be  the  view  which  the  authorities  will  take  of  an 
act  of  the  kind. 

And  here,  once  more,  is  an  account  of  the  general  administration 
of  Bengal,  which  is  of  some  permanent  interest,  irrespective  of  its 
bearing  on  himself  and  on  the  famine. 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  425 

June  17. 
The  administration  of  Bengal,  Behar,  and  Orissa, — that  is  of  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governorship of  Bengal, — has  grown  up  under  the  shadow  of  the 
old  Supreme  Court.  There  has,  consequently,  been  a  great  deal  more 
of  law  in  its  composition  than  anything  else.  Every  man  of  means 
looked  to  tiiat  Court  for  security,  rather  than  to  the  administrators  of 
the  country  ;  and  everyone  of  the  latter  desired  to  shelter  himself  under 
a  law,  ratiier  than,  by  vigorous  administration,  to  do  his  work  to  the 
best  of  his  ability.  And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  the  ordinary  course  has 
been  to  leave  the  people  alone,  and  to  allow  things  to  go  on  pretty  much 
as  they  might  do.  The  'perpetual  settlement'  of  the  land  revenue, 
whereby  a  good  deal  of  wealth  has  been  accumulated  by  the  land  hold- 
ers, and  the  large  incomes  which  many  of  them  enjoy,  joined  to  the 
circumstance  that  the  country  has,  generally  speaking,  been  visited  with 
no  droughts  during  this  century,  have  prevented  the  real  social  evils 
whicla  exist  from  becoming  apparent.  As  a  rule,  agriculture  is  the  main 
employment  of  the  people.  There  are  no  manufactures  of  any  impor- 
tance, no  mining  operations  going  on,  not  a  great  deal  of  trade,  and  very 
little  service.  Hence  the  mass  of  the  population  is  exceedingly  poor  ; 
and  as  prices  have  largely  risen  of  late  years,  while  wages  are,  generally, 
still  low,  their  condition,  on  the  whole,  is  not,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  so 
good  as  in  former  times.  Now  this  seems  to  me  to  have  been  very  much 
the  state  of  things  when  the  drought  of  1865-66  made  its  appearance  in 
a  large  part  of  Bengal,  and  culminated  in  the  famine  of  Orissa.  As 
Campbell  states  in  the  Report  of  the  Commission,  we  were  very  nearly 
having  a  famine  also  in  the  larger  half  of  Bengal.  There  is  no  doubt 
that,  in  many  parts,  there  was  very  great  distress  and  mortality  from 
famine.  I  have  lately  had  before  me  some  correspondence  with  the 
Resident  of  Nepal,  which  proves  that  numbers  of  children  were  sent 
out  of  our  Border  districts  of  Bengal  and  Behar,  and  sold  as  slaves  in 
Nepal.  Sir  Cecil  Beadon  is  a  man  of  decided  ability  and  kindly  nature. 
But  all  the  best  years  of  his  life  have  been  passed  in  the  Secretary's 
office,  and  hence  he  has  learned  to  depend  on  others  for  information,  and 
not  to  seek  it  out  himself.  These  circumstances  and  his  general  bad 
health  of  late  years  account  to  me  for  the  mistakes  he  made.  In  any 
other  way,  I  cannot  understand  how  he  could  have  gone  to  Orissa  and 
not  have  discovered  the  miserable  condition  of  the  people  and  the  calamity 
which  was  im[)L'nding  over  them. 

The  letters  which  I  have  quoted  involve  a  certain  amount  of 
repetition,  but  they  show  the  man,  disposed  to  take  the  most  char- 
itable view  possible  of  Beadon,  while  he  was  not  backward  to  take 
blame  to  himself  for  what  others  would  hardly  have  blamed  him  at 
all.  What  those  who  knew  the  circumstances  best  thought  of  his 
action  throughout,  may  be  inferred  from  the  opinion  which  I  am 
able  to  adduce  of  three  high  authorities — of  Sir  George  Campbell, 


426  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

who  as  President  of  the  Orissa  Famine  Commission  knew  more  than 
anyone  else  of  what  had  happened  during  it,  who  summed  up  the 
evidence  without  fear  and  without  favour  in  a  very  able  and  ex- 
haustive Report,  and  has,  since  then,  been  himself  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  Bengal ;  of  Lord  Northbrook,  whose  Viceroyalty  was 
to  follow  so  soon  after  that  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  and  who,  from 
the  success  with  which  he  grappled  with  a  tremendous  famine, — 
overcoming  it,  as  it  is  said,  without  the  loss  of  a  single  life, — might 
have  been  disposed  to  judge  somewhat  severely  a  predecessor  who 
had  been  less  successful ;  and  of  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  the  calm 
and  equitable  Secretary  of  State,  on  whom  fell  the  painful  duty  of 
commenting  on  the  Famine  Report,  and  meting  out  praise  and 
condemnation  to  those  who  deserved  It. 

I  have  asked  Sir  George  Campbell,  whether,  looking  back  at  this 
distance  of  time,  he  thinks  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  in  any  way 
to  blame  in  the  matter  of  the  Orissa  Famine.  And  this  is  his 
answer  : — 

I  do  not  think  that  he  was  to  blame.  He  was  very  anxious  about  the 
famine.  But  he  had  the  most  positive  assurances  of  Sir  Cecil  Beadon, 
the  responsible  Governor  of  Bengal,  that  there  was  no  cause  for  alarm. 
His  only  mistake  v/as  in  believing  Beadon.  Perhaps,  in  his  earlier  days, 
he  would  not  have  done  so.  But  it  was  quite  beyond  the  province  of 
the  Governor-General  to  supersede  the  local  Government  without  imme- 
diate necessity. 

I  have  asked  Lord  Northbrook  the  same  question,  and  his  answer 
was  to  the  same  effect,  that  he  did  not  think  Sir  John  Lawrence 
was  in  any  way  to  be  blamed. 

I  should  have  done,  said  he,  in  Lawrence's  circumstances  exactly  what 
Lawrence  did,  and  I  was  able  to  do  better,  simply  because  I  had  his  ex- 
perience by  which  to  profit. 

Finally,  in  the  private  letter  to  Sir  John  Lawrence  which  fol- 
lowed his  official  despatch.  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  writes  as  follows, 
and  I  do  not  think  that  there  will  be  many  who  will  not  agree  with 
him. 

I  sent  my  Despatch  on  the  subject  of  the  Orissa  Report  by  last  week's 
mail  ;  and  by  this  mail,  you  will,  no  doubt,  receive  the  report  of  the  dis- 
cussion in  the  House  of  Commons  last  night.  It  was  an  interesting 
debate  running  strongly  against  Sir  Cecil  Beadon.  There  was  a  very 
general  feeling  of  sympathy  with  yourself  personally;  and  I  hope  you 
will  allow  me  to  say  that,  after  carefully  reading  all  that  has  come  before 
me,  I  receive  the  impression  that  there  is  no  one  in  England  or  in  Lidia 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  4^7 

who  more  entirely  deserves  our  sympathy  under  this  sad  calamity  than 
your  Excellency.  It  is  cruel  indeed  that  such  a  visitation  should  have 
come  upon  the  land  when  it  was  under  the  charge  of  one  so  peculiarly 
distinguished  for  his  affection  for  the  people.  At  the  same  time,  I  can- 
not help  feeling  some  consolation  in  the  thought  that  we  shall  have  the 
advantage  of  your  counsel  and  assistance  in  the  endeavours  which  must 
now  be  made  to  turn  the  lesson  to  profit. 

I  have  deviated  somewhat  from  the  chronological  order  of  events, 
that  I  might  bring  into  one  connected  view  the  whole  sad  story  of 
Orissa  ;  and  now  I  return  to  the  point  from  which  I  digressed,  the 
retirement  of  Sir  Charles  Wood  from  the  India  Office  in  February 
1866.  Lord  de  Grey's  administration  was  too  short  to  allow  of  his 
doing  much  more  than  collect  information  and  mature  his  views  on 
the  most  pressing  questions  of  the  day.  He  was  in  complete  sym- 
pathy with  Sir  John  Lawrence's  Foreign  Policy  as  it  was  explained 
to  him  in  one  of  the  Governor-General's  letters  ;  while  on  the 
question  of  the  annual  migration  to  Simla,  which  Sir  John  put 
before  him,  frankly  expressing  his  willingness  to  retire  if,  on  public 
grounds,  the  practice  was  thought  undesirable,  he  was  of  the  same 
opinion  as  Sir  Charles  Wood  before  and  as  Lord  Cranborne  and 
Sir  Stafford  Northcote  after  him,  that  it  was  for  the  interest  of  all 
concerned  that  the  migration  should  continue.  '  I  should  look,' he 
says,  *  on  your  departure  from  India  as  a  great  misfortune  to  the 
public  service,  and  a  still  greater  one  to  myself  who,  new  to  my 
present  office,  stand  so  much  in  need  of  the  assistance  of  your 
experience  and  judgment.' 

Lord  Cranborne  succeeded  Lord  de  Grey  in  July.  India  was 
then  almost  a  terra  incogiiita  to  him,  nor  was  he  personally  ac- 
quainted with  any  of  its  chief  rulers.  But,  in  his  first  letter,  he 
begged  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  communicate  with  him  as  frankly 
and  unreservedly  as  if  they  were  old  acquaintances.  This,  it  is 
needless  to  say,  Lawrence  did  ;  and  the  correspondence  which 
passed  between  them  is  as  interesting  and  vigorous  and  racy  as  any 
in  my  possession.  On  the  question  of  Foreign  Policy,  as  I  shall 
show  hereafter,  there  was  a  complete  agreement,  and  Sir  John  Law- 
rence had  also  the  satisfaction  of  finding  that  two  matters  of  vital 
importance  on  which  he  had  been  writing  and  pressing  for  a  decis- 
ion, ever  since  his  accession  to  office,  were  soon  disposed  of  by  the 
energy  and  determination  of  the  new  Secretary  of  State.  These 
two  questions  were,  first,  the  grievances  of  the  officers  of  the  old 
'  local '  European  army,  which,  after  seething  and  simmering  for 
some  six  years,  had  now  grown  almost  into  the  proportions  of  a 


428  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

public  danger  ;  and,  secondly,  the  extension  of  works  of  irrigation 
throughout  India. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  speak  here,  in  detail,  of  the  grievances  of  the 
officers  or  of  the  nature  of  the  remedies  which  were  applied  to 
them.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  the  injustice  and  confusion  which 
had,  perhaps  necessarily,  resulted  from  the  amalgamation  of  the 
two  armies,  and  had  formed  the  subject  of  two  Royal  Commissions, 
were,  to  a  great  extent,  remedied  by  a  bold  and  liberal  measure, 
which  was  matured  within  a  month  of  Lord  Cranborne's  succession 
to  power,  and  reconciled  all  but  the  few  *  irreconcileables.' 

The  question  of  the  extension  of  irrigation  was  more  vital  still. 
For  twenty  years  past,  as  he  remarked  in  his  Minute  on  the  Orissa 
Famine  Report,  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  been  an  earnest  promoter 
of  irrigation  works.  Sir  Arthur  Cotton,  who  had  devoted  the  energies 
of  a  lifetime  to  the  same  subject,  had,  long  since,  pointed  out  that 
water  was  *  as  precious  as  gold  in  India,  or  rather  it  was  more  pre- 
cious ;  for  it  was  life.'  But  one  difficulty  after  another  had  started 
up,  and  had  prevented  the  highest  authorities  in  England  from  act- 
ing as  if  it  were.  One  controversy  had  been  raging  on  the  question 
whether  irrigation  works  should  be  undertaken  by  the  Government 
alone,  or  by  private  companies  alone,  or  by  a  mixture  of  both. 
Another  turned  upon  the  question  whether,  in  the  case  of  repro- 
ductive works  like  those  of  irrigation,  a  loan  was  justifiable,  and  if 
it  were,  whether  it  should  be  contracted  in  England  or  in  India. 
A  third  turned  upon  the  comparative  importance  of  railways  and 
canals  ;  and  now  another  battle  royal  was  raging  between  the  kites 
and  the  crows,  between,  that  is,  the  Bengal  and  the  Madras  engi- 
neers, as  to  the  merits  of  their  respective  systems.  Sir  John  Law- 
rence's views  on  most  of  these  questions  had  never  been  doubtful. 
But  the  burden  of  all  his  letters  to  the  Home  Authorities  had  been, 
*  decide  whichever  way  you  think  best  ;  only  give  us  irrigation,  and 
give  it  us  at  once.' 

I  have  written  (he  says  to  Sir  Charles  Wood  on  October  5,  1865),  to  you 
more  than  once  on  the  subject  of  irrigation  works  for  India,  which  is  now 
exciting  a  good  deal  of  attention  out  here.  I  earnestly  hope  that  you 
will  come  to  some  definite  conclusion  in  this  matter,  and  allow  us  to  act 
on  it.  Unless  we  take  this  course,  we  shall  get  into  a  false  position  with 
the  ])uhlic,  besides  neglecting  a  great  means  of  adding  to  our  income 
without  increasing  the  burthens  of  the  people,  and  without  doing  any- 
thing to  secure  the  land-tax,  which  periodically  suffers  from  severe 
droughts. 

My  own  idea  is  that,  on  every  ground,  the  best  course  is  for  the  State 
to  undertake  such  works  on  its  own  account.     This  is  the  best  for  the 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  429 

people  and  the  public  interests.  I  know  that  our  Engineers  work  ex- 
pensively. But,  after  all,  I  believe  that  they  work  more  economically 
than  do  public  companies.  If  we  pay  for  all  our  military  building's,  and 
roads,  and  other  necessary — though  not  productive — works  out  of  in- 
come, we  can  afford  to  borrow  for  irrigational  works.  .  .  .  If  you  can- 
not make  up  your  mind  to  this,  then  allow  private  companies  to  contract 
for  different  works,  limiting  their  extent  in  each  case,  and  not  allowing 
any  of  them  to  assume  undue  proportions,  and  making  the  best  bargains 
ill  our  power.  We  shall  have  trouble  and  difficulty  with  such  companies, 
and  shall  lose  a  good  deal  which  the  State  ought  to  retain.  But  this  is 
better  than  neither  acting  ourselves  nor  allowing  others  to  do  so. 

Again,  a  few  days  later  he  writes  : — 

As  to  irrigation  works,  I  am  strongly  of  opinion  that  Government 
should  undertake  such  works  itself;  for  social,  financial,  and  even  polit- 
ical reasons,  I  consider  this  to  be  the  right  course.  With  all  its  short- 
comings, I  believe  that  it  could  be  shown  that  the  Public  Works  Depart- 
ment can — and  does — work  cheaper  than  private  companies.  I  consider 
that,  with  all  precautions,  private  companies,  by  the  pressure  they  bring 
to  bear  on  the  Government,  both  at  home  and  in  India,  will  force  us 
into  arrangements  and  engagements  injurious  to  the  State  and  to  the 
people.  And  further  I  am  of  opinion  that  irrigation  works  will,  on  the 
whole,  answer  financially.  But  it  is  of  no  use  going  into  such  a  system 
unless  you  are  prepared  to  adopt  it.  .  .  .  It  seems  to  me  that  we  cannot 
act  as  '  the  dog  in  the  manger  ;'  that  is,  neither  undertake  such  works 
ourselves  nor  allow  private  companies  to  do  so. 

But  Sir  Charles  Wood  was  strongly  opposed  to  a  loan,  particu- 
larly to  a  loan  in  India,  nor  had  he  come,  from  one  cause  or  another, 
even  by  the  end  of  his  term  of  ofifice,  to  any  definite  decision  as  to 
the  prosecution  of  such  works.  The  remonstrances  of  Lawrence 
on  this  point  were  perpetual,  and  are  the  only  ones  in  the  whole 
course  of  his  correspondence  which  betray  anything  like  irritation. 
No  wonder  that  he  felt  strongly  upon  it ;  for  while  the  doctors  were 
disputing  as  to  the  nature  of  the  remedies  to  be  applied,  the 
patient  lay  a-dying.  Twice  over,  vvithin  the  last  six  years,  Famine 
had  desolated  large  provinces,  and  the  terrible  extent  of  the  ca- 
lamity in  Orissa  now  gave  him  a  fresh  text,  and  lent  fresh  force 
to  his  efforts.  A  project,  pressed  on  Lord  Cranborne  by  the  im- 
portunities of  commercial  men  in  England,  that  a  great  road 
should  be  constructed  from  Rangoon  through  Burmah  to  Western 
China,  gave  Sir  John  Lawrence  an  opportunity  of  expressing  his 
views  which  he  was  not  likely  to  neglect.  He  was  opposed  to  the 
construction  of  such  a  road  on  every  ground — political,  physical, 
and  economical. 


430  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

Surely  our  policy  (he  says)  is  to  concentrate  our  means  and  resources 
on  British  India  proper,  and  to  leave  alone  the  outlying-  provinces  for  the 
present  ;  indeed  for  many  years.  It  will  take  us  a  generation,  or  even 
longer,  to  do  what  is  pressingly  necessary  to  be  done  in  these  territories, 
to  open  up  the  country,  and  place  everyth-ing  on  a  sure  and  solid  basis. 
The  waste  of  money  and  material  which  follows  our  undertaking  any 
scheme  like  that  now  under  consideration  would  be  large,  and  it  would 
be  a  waste  of  means  which  we  could  employ  so  much  better  else- 
where.  .   .   . 

.  .  .  Our  main  object  should  be  to  complete  the  railways  in  India, 
which  are  the  great  arteries  of  the  country,  and  to  utilise  them,  as  far  as 
possible,  by  opening  up  feeders  in  every  direction  towards  them.  Until 
this  be  accomplished,  I  doubt  if  there  is  any  pressing  necessity  for  under- 
taking more  lines.  There  are  some  lines  still  to  be  commenced  of  con- 
siderable importance.  But  I  doubt  much  if  most  of  them  will  pay  ';  and 
in  our  present  financial  difficulties,  I  am  for  postponing  them  all.  With 
the  lines  under  construction  completed  we  should  do  well  for  a  time. 

What  seems  to  me  of  very  much  more  importance  than  new  lines  of 
communication,  is  the  question  of  irrigation  for  many  parts  of  India,  and, 
in  particular,  for  those  provinces  which  are  subject  to  droughts.  The 
misery,  the  loss  of  life,  the  poverty  which  follow  a  failure  of  rain  at  the 
usual  period  in  India,  are  almost  inconceivable  to  those  who  have  not 
lived  among  the  people  in  a  famine  year.  On  the  other  hand,  well-con- 
sidered, well-executed  irrigational  works  are  sure  to  prove  a  profitable 
investment.  There  is  therefore  no  drawback,  that  I  can  see,  to  our 
undertaking  as  many  of  these  works  as  we  can  find  money  for,  and  can 
economically  manage  and  fairly  supervise.  ...  As  a  rule,  canals  will 
not  only  pay  but  add  to  the  resources  of  the  State  and  enrich  the  people. 
Nevertheless,  we  have  been  almost  at  a  deadlock  in  this  matter  ever 
since  I  came  out  as  Governor-General.  I  took  up  the  matter  almost  im- 
mediately after  my  arrival,  and  did  all  I  could  to  urge  it  forward  to  a 
final  decision.  But  it  is  not  very  much  further  advanced  than  it  was 
three  years  ago. 

The  delay  has  arisen,  mainly,  because  it  has  not  been  authoritatively 
settled  how  and  where  the  necessary  funds  should  be  raised  for  the  pur- 
pose. We  in  India  proposed  that  these  funds  should  be  raised  in  Eng- 
land, because  we  anticipated  that  it  could  be  done  there  at  a  cheaper 
rale  than  in  India.  Lord  Halifax  was  and  is  strongly  against  this  pro- 
posal. But,  if  this  is  not  to  be,  why  not  officially  settle  the  point,  and 
rule  that  we  must  raise  the  money  for  such  purposes  in  India  ?  We  can 
do  so,  the  only  difference  being  that  we  shall  pay  somewhat  more  for  it 
than  in  England. 

There  is  one  other  reason  why  the  prosecution  of  canal  works  has 
hung  fire,  and  that  is  the  dispute  whether  these  works  should  be  made 
by  the  State  or  by  private  enterprise.  I  am  strongly  for  the  first  course. 
But  I  am  content  to  accept  the  latter  rather  than  Jiave  no  more  canals. 

One  of  the  great  objections  which  I  see  to  the  increase  of  private  com* 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  43 1 

panics  in  India,  representing  large  amounts  of  capital  and  comprising 
many  wealthy  and  influential  persons  in  England,  is  the  disadvantage  at 
which  they  place  the  Government  in  India.  The  agents  and  officials  of 
these  companies  have  a  strong  tendency  to  look  to  their  Boards  in  Eng- 
land rather  than  to  the  local  Government.  And  thus  powerful  corpora- 
tions grow  up  which  that  Government  has  difficulty  in  controlling.  So 
long  as  the  Government  goes  with  the  agents  in  India  all  is  plain  sailing. 
But  the  case  becomes  very  different  when  we  exhibit  a  desire  to  control 
or  check  them.  This  is  shown  very  clearly  when  we  try  to  reduce  ex- 
penditure, to  secure  a  really  effectual  audit  of  accounts,  to  ensure  proper 
treatment  of  the  natives  travelling  by  rail,  and  the  like. 

It  seems  strange  that,  having  held  and  persistently  urged  upon 
the  Government  at  home  views  like  these,  Sir  John  Lawrence  should 
still  be  regarded  by  some  people  as  not  having  been  sufficiently 
alive  to  the  importance  of  irrigation.  On  November  5  he  com- 
ments as  follows  on  the  report,  and,  incidentally,  also  points  out 
what  amount  of  truth  there  was,  and  there  was  not,  in  another  as- 
sertion which  had  been  made  about  him,  and  which  has  often  been 
repeated  since,  that  he  was  opposed  to  English  enterprise  generally 
in  India. 

I  see  by  the  overland  papers  of  the  3rd  ult.  that  a  set  is  being  made 
against  me  in  the  matter  of  irrigational  works.  I  do  not  feel  myself  in 
any  wise  to  blame  on  this  subject.  Since  the  day  I  landed  in  India  as 
Governor-General  I  have  done  all  I  could  do.  both  officially  and  demi- 
officially,  to  forward  such  works. ,  My  policy,  in  a  word,  has  been 
this.  The  State  should  undertake  such  works  itself,  both  on  administra- 
tive and  financial  grounds.  But,  when  it  cannot,  or  will  not,  do  this, 
then  I  would  rather  see  the  works  undertaken  by  private  companies  than 
not  at  all.  I  am  not  in  favour  of  employing  private  companies,  especially 
in  irrigational  works.  I  cannot  see  one  sound  or  valid  reason  for  doing 
so.  The  State  in  India  can  do  the  work  better  and  cheaper  than  any 
company  can  do  it,  and  keep  the  profit  to  itself   .  .   . 

I  have  not  a  particle  of  jealousy  of  English  enterprise  in  India.  On 
the  contrary,  I  sympathise  with  it  and  take  an  interest  in  it,  and  have 
assisted,  and  will  assist  it,  whenever  I  can  do  so  conscientiously.  But 
when  I  find  it  acting  oppressively  towards  the  people,  or  injuriously  to- 
wards the  interests  of  the  State,  then  I  resist  it.  We  are  and  shall  be  at 
our  wit's  end  for  revenue.  Any  increase  of  taxation  is  sure  to  produce 
much  discontent.  Is  it  not  then  a  kind  of  political  suicide  cutting  from 
under  our  feet  one  great  resource  which  is  available,  namely,  from  the 
construction  of  irrigational  works  ?  People  say  that  these  profits  will 
average  twenty,  thirty,  fifty,  or  even  a  hundred  per  cent.  This  I  don't 
believe.  But  whatever  may  be  the  surplus  which  may  thus  be  acquired, 
let  it  accrue  to  the  State,  and  thus  enable  us  to  avoid  further  taxation,  or 


432  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

lighten  tliat  which  exists.      Light  taxation,  in  my  mind,  is  the  panacea  for 
foreign  rule  in  India. 

In  Lord  Cranborne,  Sir  John  Lawrence  soon  found  that  he  had 
a  chief  who  fully  sympathised  with  his  views  as  to  the  supreme  im- 
portance of  irrigation.  In  one  of  his  early  letters,  speaking  of  the 
Soane  irrigation  project,  Lord  Cranborne  uses  almost  the  very 
words  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  so  often  used  to  Sir  Charles 
Wood  :— 

We  do  not  attempt  to  express  an  opinion  on  the  engineering- questions 
raised  l)et\veen  Colonel  Jenkins  and  Colonel  Rundail.  But  we  simply 
urge  on  you  to  undertake  the  irrigation  works  in  whatever  way  you 
think  best,  only  ivithout  further  delay.  An  imperfect  or  inferior 
scheme  is  better  than  to  spend  another  five  or  ten  years  in  a  controversy 
as  to  which  is  the  best. 

And  again,  he  says,  on  October  16  : — 

I  was  very  glad  to  read  what  you  said  in  your  last  letter  with  respect 
to  irrigation.  The  case  in  favour  of  pressing  it  on  vigorously,  especially 
on  the  eastern  coast  of  India,  appears  to  me  overwhelming.  ...  As  far 
as  I  am  concerned,  I  shall  be  happy  to  co-operate  with  you  in  whatever 
mode  will,  in  your  judgment,  be  most  conducive  to  rapid  and  effective 
action  in  the  matter.  It  is  not  a  subject  on  which  time  ought  to  be  lost ; 
for  the  preservation  of  multitudes  from  these  frightful  famines  is  an  ob- 
ject very  different  in  its  dimensions  from  the  mere  development  of  pros- 
perity, which  is  the  object  of  most  public  works.  .  .  .  With  respect  to 
the  private  company  question,  I  should  be  averse  to  any  general  rule  on 
the  subject,  but  private  companies  should  only  be  admitted  on  two  indis- 
pensable conditions  •,  first,  that  they  will  conform  to  whatever  rules  you 
shall  think  necessary  for  the  protection  of  the  natives,  and  secondly,  that 
they  shall  prove  themselves  to  have  in  hand  money  enough  to  do  their 
work.  Nothing  is  so  bad  as  '  private  enterprise,'  which  starts  with  a 
concession  and  then  gets  capital  by  driblets  afterwards  on  the  strength 
of  it. 

Carte  blanche  being  thus  given  him,  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  able 
to  lay  down  the  principles  for  which  he  had  so  long  and  so  earnestly 
striven  :  that  irrigation  works  were  to  be  undertaken  by  Govern- 
ment on  a  general  and  well-considered  scheme  over  every  part  of 
India  which  was  liable  to  drought,  and  that  the  money  needed  for 
them  should,  where  the  surplus  revenue  did  not  suffice,  be  raised 
by  means  of  loans.  Colonel  Richard  Strachey,  who  now,  much  to 
Sir  John  Lawrence's  delight,  returned  to  India,  was,  on  his  instance, 
appointed  Superintendent  of  Irrigation,  and  was  directed  to  visit 
and  report  on  all  the  great  works  hitherto  undertaken   in  Madras 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  433 

and  Bengal.  A  separate  branch  of  the  Public  Works  Department 
was  organised  in  each  of  the  Presidencies,  to  take  charge  of  irriga- 
tion. Thirty  civil  engineers  were  sent  out  from  England  to  super- 
intend the  new  works,  and  when  Sir  John  Lawrence  laid  down  his 
high  office  in  1869,  he  was  able  to  say  that  in  the  short  time  of  little 
more  than  two  years  which  had  elapsed  since  his  plans  had  been 
sanctioned,  there  was  not  a  province  in  the  whole  of  India  in  which 
extensive  surveys  for  canals  had  not  been  made,  new  canals  pro- 
jected or  approved  of,  and,  in  many  cases,  begun,  old  ones  remod- 
elled, embankments  against  disastrous  floods  strengthened,  and  the 
system  of  canal  management  generally  reformed  ;  in  fact,  that  great 
progress  had  been  made  towards  insuring  a  final  victory  over  two 
of  the  worst  enemies  of  the  inhabitants  of  India — drought  and 
famine. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  was  not  so  anxious  for  an  immediate  and 
wholesale  development  of  the  railway  system  as  for  the  extension  of 
irrigation,  for  the  construction  of  ordinary  roads,  the  building  of 
improved  barracks,  and  the  introduction  of  sanitary  measures  gen- 
erally. He  thought  that  many  of  the  proposed  railways  might  stand 
over  till  more  had  been  done  in  these  other  directions,  and  till  the 
finances  were  in  a  more  satisfactory  condition.  Festhia  lente  ;  Eile 
mit  Weile,  was  the  maxim  with  which  he  was  disposed  to  act  in  the 
matter  of  railways.  But  that  in  spite  of  this  maxim,  or  rather,  per- 
haps, owing  to  it,  a  vast  stride  was  made  even  in  the  construction 
of  railways  during  his  administration,  I  shall  be  able  to  show  here- 
after. 

There  was  no  lack  of  pressing  subjects  to  be  discussed  with  the 
new  Secretary  of  State  during  this,  his  first  half-year  of  office. 
The  intervention  in  Bahawulpore,  forced  by  prolonged  misgovern- 
ment  on  the  Governor-General,  who  of  all  men  was  most  reluctant 
to  interfere  in  the  internal  management  of  our  feudatory  states  ; 
the  standing  difficulty  of  the  finances,  and  the  question  of  income 
or  license  tax  for  the  following  year  ;  the  succession  to  Mysore  ; 
the  debts  of  Azim  Jah,  the  arrangements  for  Kattewar,  and  for  the 
great  cantonments  at  Peshawur  which  had  just  been  begun  ;  the 
costliness  of  the  British  soldier ;  the  discontent  of  the  Madras 
army  ;  the  French  expedition  to  Burmah  ;  the  disturbances  in  the 
Persian  Gulf  ;  and  the  somewhat  aggressive  operations,  as  Sir  John 
Lawrence  thought  them,  of  Sir  Lewis  Pelly  there — these  were  a 
few  of  the  subjects,  over  and  above  the  Central  Asian  question, 
the  Orissa  famine,  and  the  Bombay  scandals  which  were  frankly 
discussed  by  the  two  men  during  these  few  months. 
VOL.  n. — 28 


434  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

I  have  room  to  quote  one  letter  only  on  one  of  these  subjects  ; 
and  I  quote,  by  preference,  one  by  Lord  Cranborne  on  the  im- 
portant subject  of  the  costliness  of  the  British  soldier  in  India,  as 
illustrating  the  raciness  of  style  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  used  to 
say  acted  'like  a  stirrup  cup'  to  him  in  the  middle  of  his  more 
prosaic  correspondence. 

December  3. 

Dear  Sir  John  Lawrence, — The  controversy  we  have  had  respecting 
Peshawur  naturally  suggests  a  subject  which  the  perusal  of  military 
papers  constantly  brings  before  my  mind, — that  the  British  soldier  is  a 
very  expensive  implement.  One  day,  it  is  an  estimate  on  a  portentous 
scale  for  new  barracks  in  new  places,  because  he  cannot  stand  the  ordi- 
nary climate  of  India  ;  another  day,  it  is  an  estimate  for  gymnastic  in- 
structors to  give  him  exercise  ;  then,  for  books  to  amuse  his  leisure 
hours  ;  then,  a  lumping  sum  for  gas,  because  oil  tries  his  eyes  ;  then, 
for  an  ice-making  machine  to  improve  his  dessert,  then,  for  separate 
cottages  for  married  couples,  because  the  wives  like  to  keep  cocks  and 
hens  ;  and — not  to  enumerate  more  items — an  enormous  bill  for  rejected 
beer,  because  Messrs.  Whitbread  cannot  brew  good  enough  beer  for 
him.  This  is  very  costly  in  the  long  run,  and  the  cost  shows  no  sign  of 
diminishing.  For  the  enormous  difficulty  of  recruiting  in  England  rather 
suggests  that  we  shall  have  to  make  the  service  more  and  more  attract- 
ive, if  we  mean  to  keep  our  numbers  up  to  the  present  standard.  In- 
deed, before  long,  our  necessities  here  may  be  so  urgent  that  we  shall 
not  be  able  to  let  you  have  70,000  British  soldiers  at  any  price.  Natu- 
rally, the  thought  occurs,  is  a  substitute  to  any  extent  possible  ? 

I  introduce  this  subject  with  no  little  hesitation,  because  I  have  seen 
enough  to  be  fully  aware  how  intense  an  importance  all  great  authorities 
attach  to  the  presence  of  a  large  British  force  in  India.  It  must  be  kept 
there  to  keep  the  large  native  army  from  revolting  ;  and  though  some, 
like  Mr.  Mangles,  are  of  opinion  that  this  necessity  might  be  largely 
reduced  by  reducing  the  force  of  the  native  army,  that  is  not  the  general 
opinion,  and  from  some  language  that  has  been  used  by  you,  I  imagine 
that  it  is  not  yours.  If  such  an  opinion  came  merely  from  military  men, 
I  should  not  attach  to  it  a  decisive  significance  ;  for  even  their  excellent 
profession  is  not  free  from  a  leaning  to  the  doctrine  that  there  is  nothing 
like  leather.  But  you  have  better  opportunities  of  judging  than  most 
men,  and,  in  your  case,  there  can  be  no  professional  prepossessions.  I 
will,  therefore,  assume  that  you  cannot  reduce  your  native  army,  nor, 
therefore,  the  number  of  their  British  watchers.  But  is  it  not  possible 
to  construct  the  native  army  of  less  combustible  materials  ? 

As  far  as  I  can  judge,  we  do  not,  in  India,  follow  the  usual  despotic 
tradition  of  employing  our  soldiers  as  much  as  possible  at  a  distance 
from  their  birthplace.  The  difficulties  of  caste,  the  expense  of  transport, 
may  be  hindrances  to  its  application.  Is  it  your  opinion  that  it  is  em- 
ployed as  much  as  it  might  be  ?     Would  Mohammedan  Afghans  be  as 


1865-66  THE  VICEROYALTY.  435 

dangerous  in  the  South  of  India — or  even  in  Ceylon — as  on  the  North- 
West  frontier  ?  Would  a  Sikh  be  as  formidable  to  his  masters  at  Calcutta 
as  he  is  in  his  own  country  ?  Of  course,  I  do  not  know.  I  cannot  know 
how  much  caste,  cost,  and  climate  combine  to  make  this  principle 
inapplicable.  But  I  cannot  help  being  puzzled  that  you  should,  in  your 
dread  of  your  own  troops,  have  refrained  from  availing  yourself  of  the 
resource  which  has  commended  itself  to  conquerors  in  every  age — Ro- 
man, Russian,  French — and  which,  on  the  whole,  has  answered  their 
purpose  well.  But  there  is  a  peculiar  difficulty  in  your  case,  to  which 
the  remedy  seems  very  obvious — so  obvious,  that  there  must  be  some 
good  reason  why  you  have  not  adopted  it.  Your  difficulty  is  that  you 
have  soldiers  liable  to  become  alienated  and  joined  against  you,  not  by 
your  political  measures,  but  by  fear  of  your  religion.  Rumours  of  dan- 
ger from  the  Wahabees  have  come  from  a  distinguished  native  at  Ma- 
dras. Threats  of  a  Crescentade,  which  would  sorely  try  the  fidelity  of 
your  Mohammedan  soldiers,  have  been  heard  on  the  North-West  fron- 
tier. And  we  know  by  sad  experience  what  a  Hindu's  religious  terrors 
will  do  for  him.  Yet  your  army  is,  in  the  main,  composed  of  Moham- 
medans and  Hindus.  Is  this  necessary  ?  Can  you  find  no  races  that 
have  neither  caste  nor  Koran  to  defend,  nor  deposed  rulers  to  avenge  ? 
Are  there  none  in  Burmah,  or  Borneo,  or  Ceylon  or  even  further 
afield  ?  , 

You  will  say  it  would  be  too  costly  to  introduce  these.  If  the  matter 
has  been  made  the  subject  of  calculation  I  have  nothing  more  to  say. 
If  it  has  been  found  that  it  is  cheaper  to  import  70,000  British  soldiers 
than  35,000  British  soldiers,  and  say,  70,000  foreign  mercenaries  of  Ori- 
ental blood,  but  without  sympathy  for  Mussulman  or  Hindu — of  course 
it  may  be  good  policy  to  employ  our  British  soldiers  while  we  may,  and 
reserve  any  expenditure  upon  other  race  still  they  are  withdrawn.  My 
only  fear  is  that  the  answer  may  be  dictated  not  by  calculation,  but — by 
what  is  far  more  powerful  in  most  countries — by  routine.  The  routine 
would  be  all  very  well  if  it  could  last.  But  I  cannot  repress  the  convic- 
tion that  a  withdrawal  of  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  of  the  troops  now  in 
India  within  the  next  dozen  years  is  no  improbable  contingency.  You 
know  best  whether  there  are  not  people  both  in  Gwalior  and  Hyderabad 
who  would  gladly  avail  themselves  of  such  an  opportunity,  if  it  occurred. 
I  should  like  very  much  to  know  what  your  views  are  on  this  subject  ; 
whether  you  count  absolutely  on  retaining  all  the  British  troops  you  have 
now,  or  whether,  failing  them,  you  have  thought  of  any  substitute. 

We  certainly  do  not  propose  to  give  to  Azim  Jah  anything  more  than 
the  fifteen  lacs  for  his  debts.  But  I  would  have  no  sympathy  for  his 
creditors.  They  have  simply  speculated  on  what  they  could  get  out  of 
the  British  Government,  and  they  must  take  the  consequences  if  the 
risk,  against  which  they  have,  no  doubt,  insured  by  high  interest,  should 
be  realised.  I  should  think  that  in  dealing  with  all  these  pensioned 
princes  it  would  be  far  better  to  treat  them  as  we  treat  infants  here,  and 
make  them  absolutely  incapable  of  incurring  debts.    I  don't  see  how  you 


436  LIFE  OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

are  to  deal  with  the  gentleman  wlio  maintains  102  concubines  on  any 
other  principle. 

We  send  you  out,  by  this  mail,  two  despatches  on  the  subject  of  flog- 
ging coolies  in  Assam.  The  way  in  which  English  agents,  unwatched, 
are  apt  to  maltreat  natives  is  a  material  argument  in  the  question  of 
encouraging  private  enterprise. 

Believe  me, 

Yours  very  truly, 

Cranborne. 

Early  in  November,  Sir  John  Lawrence  left  Simla  for  Agra, 
where  he  was  to  hold  his  second  great  Durbar,  a  Durbar  which, 
though  it  seems  to  me  to  have  been  much  inferior  in  historical 
interest  to  that  at  Lahore,  was  thought  by  some  good  judges  to  be, 
in  certain  of  its  aspects,  even  more  imposing.  No  one  understood 
better  than  Sir  John  Lawrence  that,  in  the  East,  pomp  may  often 
be  power  ;  and  no  one  accordingly  was  more  ready,  when  occasion 
required  it,  to  drop  his  ordinary  self  and  to  exchange  the  privacy, 
the  simplicity,  the  unceasing  desk  work  of  his  ordinary  life,  for  the 
gorgeousness  and  circumstance  and  munificence  of  a  great  Eastern 
monarch.  The  splendour  of  his  Durbars  was,  undoubtedly,  all  the 
more  impressive  from  the  force  of  the  contrast  which  they  pre- 
sented to  his  daily  habits.  The  Durbar  at  Agra  was  intended,  in 
the  first  instance,  for  the  proud  and  once  powerful  chiefs  of  Raj- 
pootana  and  Bundelkhund,  eighty-four  of  whom  responded  to  his 
summons.  And  Sir  John  availed  himself  of  the  opportunity  to  hold 
also  an  Investiture  of  the  Star  of  India.  He  was  in  weak  health, 
and  there  were  many  who  feared  that  the  never-ending  round,  con- 
tinued for  nearly  a  fortnight,  of  military  reviews,  of  balls  and  par- 
ties, of  public  and  private  interviews,  would  be  too  much  for  his 
strength.     But  he  managed  to  stand  the  test. 

The  place  was  well  chosen.  Of  all  the  great  cities  in  the  North- 
West  of  India,  Agra  is  inferior,  in  historical  interest,  to  Delhi  alone. 
In  its  buildings  and  its  surroundings,  it  is  superior  even  to  Delhi. 
The  Pearl  Mosque,  the  tomb  at  Sekundra,  and  the  Taj  Mehal  as 
far  surpass  the  buildings  which  are  the  chief  pride  of  Delhi,  as 
Akbar,  the  greatest  of  all  Indian  monarchs,  and  one  of  the  greatest 
monarchs  of  any  time  and  any  age,  surpasses  the  savage  conquerors 
or  splendid  rulers  whose  names  are  more  closely  connected  with  the 
capital  of  the  Moguls. 

I  must  pass  very  rapidly  over  the  details  of  the  Durbar.  At  the 
Investiture  Durbar,  the  Maharajas  of  Joudpore  and  Kerrowlie  be- 
came Knights  Grand  Cross  of  the  Star  of  India  ;  while  the  lower 


1865-66  THE  VICEROYALTY.  437 

honours  of  the  Order  were  conferred  on  a  considerable  number  of 
persons,  native  or  EngUsh,  who  had  either  done  us  strenuous  ser- 
vice during  the  Mutiny,  or  had  been  closely  connected  with  Sir 
John  Lawrence  in  his  earlier  life,  and  now  valued  doubly  the  dis- 
tinction, as  coming  from  the  man  who  knew  best  what  they  Jiad 
done  to  deserve  it.  Such  were  Donald  Macleod,  Sirdar  Sahib  Dyal, 
and  Sirdar  Nihal  Singh  Chachi,  who  were  made  K.C.S.I.'s,  while 
the  Companionship  of  the  Order  fell  to  men  whose  names  have 
occurred  again  and  again  in  this  biography — to  Edward  Lake,  to 
Reynell  Taylor,  to  Richard  Temple,  to  Arthur  Roberts,  and  to 
Crawford  Chamberlain.  It  is  difficult  to  say,  under  such  circum- 
stances, which  must  have  felt  the  most  vivid  satisfaction,  the  Vice- 
roy in  conferring,  or  the  recipients  in  receiving,  the  honour  from 
his  hands. 

Among  other  distinguished  Englishmen  or  natives  who  received 
honours  were  Sir  Cecil  Beadon  ;  Colonel  Richard  Meade,  the  able 
Resident  at  Scindia's  Court  ;  James  Gordon,  the  Viceroy's  Private 
Secretary  ;  the  Maharaja  of  Vizianagram,  and  Sir  Dinkar  Rao. 
The  Maharaja  of  Kerrowlie,  who  had  fought  for  us  in  the  Mutiny, 
the  Maharaja  of  Bulranpore,  who  had  saved  the  lives  of  Sir  Charles 
Wingfield  and  others  in  Oude,  and  the  Raja  of  Morarmow,  who  had 
done  the  same  for  the  fugitives  from  Cawnpore,  received  their  re- 
spective Orders  from  Sir  John  Lawrence,  with  a  speech  which 
warmly  recorded  the  services  of  each. 

The  Maharaja  of  Joudpore  was  a  marked  exception,  and  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  explain  the  circumstances.  Sir  John  had  written 
privately  to  the  Secretary  of  State  earnestly  begging  that  if  his 
name  were  not  already  gazetted  the  honour  might  not  be  given  him. 

He  is  no  doubt  (he  said)  a  chief  of  the  highest  rank  in  India.  He  is, 
indeed,  the  chief  of  foremost  rank  in  all  Rajpootana.  But  it  appears  to 
me  that  if  this  Order  is  to  do  any  good,  the  chiefs  who  receive  it  should 
be  men  of  some  personal  merit  and  character.  If  not,  it  will  become  a 
mere  appendage  of  rank,  and  will  carry  with  it  no  real  value.  Now 
the  Maharaja  of  Joudpore,  as  you  will  see  by  the  enclosed  extract  of 
a  letter  from  Colonel  Eden,  the  Governor-General's  Agent  in  Rajpootana, 
neither  maintains  his  own  dignity  nor  is  respected  by  his  own  feud- 
atories. To  make  such  a  man  'Knight  of  the  Exalted  Star' seems  to 
me  a  great  mistake. 

Unfortunately,  the  name  of  the  Maharaja  had  been  already  ga- 
zetted, and  it  was  thought  better  not  to  undo  what  was  already  half 
done.  I  have,  therefore,  searched,  with  some  interest,  for  the  report 
of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  speech  to  him  in  Durbar.     Nine  out  of  ten 


438  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

men  would,  under  the  circumstances,  have  been  so  far  untrue  to 
themselves,  as  to  express  a  conventional  pleasure  at  being  the  me- 
dium of  conferring  the  honour  upon  him.  Sir  John  Lawrence  did 
nothing  of  the  kind.  His  address  consists  of  a  dignified  and  pa- 
terntll  admonition  to  reform  his  ways : 

I  am  sure  that  your  Highness  must  highly  appreciate  this  great  hon- 
our, and  I  trust  that  it  will  prove  an  incentive  to  you  to  exert  yourself 
in  the  good  management  of  Marwar,  which  has  descended  to  you  from 
ancestors  illustrious  in  the  annals  of  Rajwarra.  A  Chief  who  ranks  so 
high  among  the  rulers  of  that  famous  country  should  also  take  among 
men  a  similar  position  for  justice,  for  benevolence,  and  for  the  excellence 
with  which  its  affairs  are  managed.  It  is  my  earnest  desire  that  this 
sliould  be  the  ambition  of  your  Highness. 

It  may  be  added  that  the  advice  here  given  was  not  attended  to  ; 
and,  not  long  afterwards,  the  Viceroy  showed  that  he  could  strike 
as  well  as  speak.  The  Maharaja  was  removed  for  gross  maladmin- 
istration, which  had  all  but  brought  on  civil  war  between  him  and 
his  nobles,  and  a  Council  of  Regency  was  entrusted  with  the  Gov- 
ernment. 

Several  days  were  spent  in  receiving  and  returning  the  visits  of 
the  higher  among  the  Chiefs,  and  in  practical  conversations  with 
them.  On  the  19th  the  grand  Durbar  took  place.  At  the  head 
of  the  assembled  Princes  was  the  chief  of  one  of  the  two  great  Mah- 
ratta  houses,  the  Maharaja  Scindia.  Next  to  him  came  Joudpore 
and  Jeypore,  two  of  the  oldest  Rajpoot  families,  and  then  the  fa- 
mous Begum  of  Bhopal,  a  small  Mohammedan  state,  wedged  in  be- 
tween Mahratfas  and  Rajpoots,  which  had  long  furnished,  and 
furnishes  still,  in  point  of  good  government,  something  like  a  model 
for  other  native  states.  There  were  the  usual  Nuzzurs  and  Khilluts, 
and  also  the  usual  jealousies  and  contests  for  precedence  among 
the  chiefs  who  occupied  debatable  or  delicate  ground.  But  these 
were  skilfully  got  over,  and  were  constructively  rebuked  in  the  Vice- 
roy's speech.  That  speech  was  a  model  of  its  kind.  It  was  simple, 
earnest,  parental,  with  no  flowers  of  rhetoric,  no  well  turned  phrases, 
no  bandying  of  high  flown  Oriental  compliments.  It  was  delivered 
in  the  language  which  had  produced  so  profound  an  impression  at 
Lahore  ;  and  the  'soft  hesitancy  of  manner  and  voice  which  some- 
what marred  Sir  John's  English  speeches,'  lent,  as  was  remarked 
by  those  who  heard  it,  additional  impressiveness  to  a  speech  in 
Urdu.  'The  assembled  chiefs  listened,'  says  an  eyewitness,  'with 
absorbed  attention  and  profound  reverence  to  the  representative  of 
their  Sovereign,  laying  down,  like  one  of  the  sages  of  the  past,  like 


1365-66  THE    VICEROYALTY.  439 

Vyas  or  Vasishtu,  the  true  theory  of  government.  One  was  carried 
back,  in  imagination,  to  the  times  when  the  Hindu  kings  solicited 
and  accepted  the  noblest  truths  of  religion,  of  social  law  and  of 
government,  from  their  Gurus,  or  spiritual  guides — from  men  who, 
having  made  mankind  their  study,  retired  to  mountain  fastnesses 
or  into  the  wilderness  to  contemplate  what  was  good  and  holy, 
beneficent  and  kingly.'  Sir  John  told  the  assembled  Princes  frankly, 
that  the  standard  by  which  the  Paramount  Power  would  henceforth 
estimate  the  worth  of  each  one  of  them,  was  not  his  long  line,  his 
wealth  or  his  power,  but  his  determination  to  govern  well.  That 
Chief  who  made  his  people  happiest  would  be  the  best  friend  of 
the  British  Government.  The  era  of  plunder  and  of  religious  per- 
secution had  gone  by  for  ever.  The  British  Empire  meant  peace  ; 
and,  as  far  as  might  be,  plenty.  Much  country  which  had  once 
been  desert  and  inhabited  only  by  wild  beasts  or  robbers,  was 
now  cultivated  and  covered  with  populous  villages.  The  raids  of 
Mahratta  horsemen  and  Pindari  freebooters  were  gone  by,  and  what 
the  British  Government  had  done  for  the  country  at  large,  thtit  each 
chief  was  bound  to  do  for  his  own  people.  But  I  will  not  condense 
a  speech  which,  for  its  genuine  simplicity,  its  frank  but  kindly  pa- 
ternal admonitions,  its  earnest  philanthropy,  seems  to  me  to  stand 
high,  as  a  specimen  of  imperial  eloquence. 

O  Maharajas,  Rajas,  and  Sirdars  ! — It  is  with  great  satisfaction  that  I 
see  you  all  assembled  before  me  this  day.  I  bid  you  all  a  hearty  wel- 
come to  this  famous  City,  renowned  for  its  splendid  Taj,  and  above  all,  as 
having  been,  in  former  days,  the  seat  of  Government  of  the  great  Em- 
peror from  whom  it  derives  its  name  of  Akbar-a-bad. 

It  is  good  for  us  thus  to  meet  together.  It  is  advantageous  for  me,  as 
.the  Viceroy  of  the  illustrious  Queen  of  England  and  India,  to  see  and  be- 
come acquainted  with  so  many  chiefs  of  rank  and  reputation.  And  for 
you  all,  it  is  right  that  ycu  should  be  able  to  speak  face  to  face  with  me, 
and  hear  my  views  and  wishes  regarding  the  managem.ent  of  your 
respective  territories. 

The  art  of  governing  wisely  and  well  is  a  difficult  one,  which  is  only  to 
be  attained  by  much  thought,  and  care,  and  labour.  Few  kings  and 
chiefs  in  Hindustan  have  possessed  the  necessary  qualifications,  because 
they  have  not  taken  the  precaution  in  their  youth  to  learn  how  to  study 
and  to  act  for  themselves.  Nor  have  they  cared  to  have  their  sons, 
those  who  were  to  succeed  them,  well  instructed  and  carefully  trained. 
Hence  it  has  so  often  happened,  that,  after  a  chief  has  passed  away,  he 
has  not  been  remembered  as  a  good  and  wise  ruler.  Great  men,  when 
living,  often  receive  praise  from  their  friends  and  adherents  for  virtue? 
which  they  do  not  possess,  and  it  is  only  after   this  life  is  ended  that  the 


440  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

real  truth  is  told.  Of  all  fame  that  such  men  can  acquire,  that  alone  is 
worth  having-  which  is  accorded  to  a  just  and  beiieticent  ruler.  The 
names  of  conquerors  and  heroes  are  forgotten.  But  those  of  virtuous 
and  wise  chiefs  live  for  ever. 

The  days  of  war  and  rapine,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  have  passed  away  from 
Hindustan,  never  to  return.  But  perhaps  some  of  the  chiefs  now  pres- 
ent can  recollect  the  time  in  India,  and  all  must  have  heard  of  the  times, 
when  neither  the  Palace  of  the  ruler,  nor  the  cottage  of  the  peasant,  nor 
the  most  sacred  edifices  of  Hindu  or  Mohammedan  were  safe  from  the 
hands  of  the  plunderer  and  the  destroyer.  In  those  days,  whole  prov- 
inces were  one  scene  of  devastation  and  misery  ;  and  in  vast  tracts  of 
country  scarcely  the  light  of  a  lamp  was  to  be  seen  iu  a  single  village. 
English  rule  in  India  has  put  all  this  down.  No  longer  is  the  country  a 
waste  and  a  wilderness,  the  abode  of  savage  animals.  It  is  now,  to  a 
great  extent,  covered  with  populous  villages  and  rich  with  cultivation, 
while  the  inhabitants  are  living  in  comparative  safety  under  the  shade 
of  English  power. 

But  while  such,  no  doubt,  is  to  a  great  extent,  a  true  picture  of  the 
state  of  India,  still,  when  we  inquire  closely  into  the  condition  of  differ- 
ent paris  of  the  country,  we  cannot  but  perceive  that  much  tyranny  and 
oppression  are  still  practised  ;  that  much  individual  suffering  still  exists  ; 
and  that  much  crime  escapes  unpunished.  That  peace  and  that  security 
from  outward  violence  which  the  British  Government  confers  on  your 
territories,  you  must,  each  of  you,  extend  to  your  people.  None  but  the 
rulers  of  their  own  lands  can  accomplish  this  ;  and  they  can  only  do  it 
by  constant  care  and  supervision.  They  have  plenty  of  time  to  do  all 
that  is  necessary,  if  they  have  only  the  will.  Chiefs  have  abundant  time 
for  their  own  pleasures  and  amusements.  Indeed  many  of  them  have 
more  leisure  than  they  can  employ,  and  they  are  often  weary  from  want 
of  something  to  interest  them.  Others,  again,  waste  their  time  in  dis- 
putes with  their  neighbours,  in  quarrels  with  their  feudatories,  and  even 
in  still  less  satisfactory  ways. 

If  a  chief  will  neglect  his  own  proper  duty,  the  care  of  his  estate,  how 
can  he  expect  that  a  Deputy  will  perform  it  properly  for  him  ?  Good 
laws  and  well  selected  officials,  carefully  supervised,  are  necessary  to  en- 
sure good  government.  An  efficient  police  and  a  well-managed  revenue 
are  equally  desirable,  so  that  people  may  live  in  safety,  and  enjoy  the 
fruits  of  their  industry.  Schools  for  the  education  of  the  young  and  hos- 
pitals for  the  cure  of  the  sick  should  also  be  established.  Some  chiefs 
are,  perhaps,  in  debt,  and  would  find  it  difficult  to  do  much  in  the  way 
I  have  sketched.  But  other  chiefs  have  abundant  revenues.  And  all  I 
ask  is  that  every  ruler  should  act  according  to  his  means.  Some  among 
you  vie  with  each  other  for  precedence,  and  feel  aggrieved  at  the  posi- 
tion which  they  occupy.  How  much  more  to  the  purpose  would  it  be  if 
all  would  try  which  can  govern  his  country  in  the  wisest  manner  !  In 
this  way  there  is  abundance  of  scope  for  all.  The  British  Government 
will  honour  that  chief  most  who  excels  in  the  good  management  of  his 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  441 

people  ;  who  does  most  to  put  clown  crime,  and  improve  the  condition 
of  his  country.  There  are  chiefs  in  this  Durbar  who  have  acquired  a 
reputation  in  this  way.  I  may  mention  Maharaja  Scindia  and  the  Begum 
of  Bhopal.  The  death  of  the  late  Nawab  Ghour  Khan  of  Jowrah  was  a 
cause  of  grief  to  me  ;  for  I  have  heard  that  he  was  a  wise  and  beneficent 
ruler.  The  Raja  of  Setamow  in  Malwa  is  now  ninety  years  old,  and  yet 
it  is  said  that  he  manages  his  country  very  well.  The  Raja  of  Ketra  in 
Jeypore  has  been  publicly  honoured  for  the  wise  arrangements  he  has 
made  in  his  lands.  It  is  to  me  a  very  great  pleasure,  when  I  hear  of  the 
meritorious  conduct  of  any  chief,  and  I  try  and  make  this  known,  so  as 
to  encourage  other  rulers  to  follow  his  example. 

Kings  and  Chiefs  in  former  times  had  no  idea  of  opening  out  their 
countries.  They  often  lived  in  difficult  and  almost  inaccessible  positions, 
surrounding  their  palaces  with  all  kinds  of  fortifications,  out  of  which 
they  seldom  ventured  to  any  distance  ;  and  then,  only  when  attended  by 
as  many  soldiers  and  armed  followers  as  they  could  muster.  As  to 
travelling  to  see  the  wonders  of  other  countries,  such  an  idea  never  en- 
tered their  minds  ;  or  if  it  did,  it  was  dismissed  as  utterly  impracticable. 
But  the  Princes  of  Hindustan  have  now  little  hesitation  in  moving  from 
one  place  to  another  at  a  distance  from  their  own  territories.  Some 
chiefs  have  become  so  enlightened  and  far-seeing  as  to  be  wilHng  to  have 
roads  made  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  their  lands,  and  some 
have  contributed,  annually,  considerable  sums  for  this  purpose.  I  hope 
that  others  will  follow  their  example,  and  do  all  they  can  to  construct 
roads,  canals,  and  vv'ells  in  their  country,  thus  enriching  themselves  and 
tlieir  people. 

I  will  now  conclude  by  wishing  you  all  again  a  welcome  to  Agra,  and 
trust  that  what  you  will  have  seen  and  heard,  and  the  general  reception 
you  have  met  with,  may  make  you  long  remember  this  Durbar.  I  have 
but  one  object,  namely,  that  you  should  try  and  govern  your  people  well, 
and  thus  conduce  to  your  own  good  name  and  their  happiness. 

With  this  speech  the  interest  of  the  great  Agra  gathering  came 
to  an  end.  It  had  been  a  marked  success.  One  who  had  made  it 
his  business  to  mix  with  the  crowd  and  to  see  all  that  was  to  be 
seen,  wrote  : — 

That  Sir  John  Lawrence  is  popular  at  bottom,  in  spite  of  a  few  mis- 
takes, cannot  be  doubted.  The  natives  wonder  at  and  fear  him  ;  and  the 
Europeans,  gazing  on  the  grand  rugged  face  and  steady  tread  of  the 
Viceroy,  have  the  most  implicit  belief  that,  so  long  as  he  reigns,  neither 
chief  nor  ryot,  neither  fanatic  nor  revolutionist,  will  develop  their  plans 
or  venture  to  disturb  the  quiet  of  the  Empire. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  himself  was  equally  well  satisfied  with  what 
had  taken  place. 

Our  investitures  (he  writes  to  Lord  Cranborne)   for   the  Star  of   India, 


442  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1865-66 

and  the  Durbar  for  the  Chiefs  of  Rajpootana  and  the  North-West  Prov- 
inces, with  a  few  leading  men  from  the  Punjab,  Oude,  and  Bengal,  have 
gone  off  with  great  eclat  and  have  given  general  satisfaction.  At  the 
second  Durbar  we  had  present  some  350  chiefs  and  native  gentlemen  ; 
and  though  full  100,000  strangers  were  assembled  in  and  around  Agra, 
everything  went  off  in  the  most  peaceable  and  orderly  manner. 

From  Agra,  Sir  John  Lawrence  paid  a  visit  of  a  few  days  to 
Scindia,  and  inspected  the  famous  fort  of  Gwalior,  which  as  the 
result  of  skilful  management  on  the  part  of  himself  and  Colonel 
Meade,  the  Mahratta  Prince  had  been  induced  to  allow  us  to  occupy 
permanently.  A  year  or  two  previously  Scindia  had  felt  aggrieved, 
had  threatened  a  visit  of  complaint  to  Calcutta,  and  had  even 
talked  of  abdication.  Now,  all  was  changed,  and  he  was  on  the 
best  of  terms  with  himself  and  with  everybody.  Sir  John  Law- 
rence's description  of  his  visit  is  interesting  : — 

I  had  a  very  interesting  trip  to  Gwalior,  which  lies  some  seventy-eight 
miles  south  of  Agra,  across  the  Chumbul.  Since  the  Mutiny  we  have 
constructed  a  good  road  over  this  line,  which  forms  a  portion  of  the 
high  road  to  Bombay.  I  did  the  distance  in  seven  hours — good  travelling 
in  India.  The  fortress  of  Gwalior  is  a  formidable  and  commanding 
position,  and  its  possession  to  us  is,  morally  anc^  materially,  worth  an 
extra  regiment  of  British  infantry.  Indeed,  without  it  we  could  not 
safely  keep  a  force  at  Scindia's  capital.  The  weakness  of  our  occupation 
consists  in  the  distance — some  five  miles — of  our  cantonment  from  the 
fortress,  and  the  extended  space  over  which  our  troops  are  scattered 
for  sanitary  considerations.  Scindia  has  a  large  and  well-equipped  and, 
apparently,  well-organised  force.  In  dress,  drill,  and  equipment,  I  have 
never  seen  anything  like  it  at  any  court  in  India.  Its  numerical  strength 
in  guns,  cavalry,  and  infantry  far  surpasses  that  of  our  force  in  the  ad- 
jacent cantonment,  and  the  way  Scindia  handled  them  on  parade  was 
remarkable.  I  do  not  think  that  the  men  and  horses  are  equal  in  phys- 
ical appearance  and  warlike  bearing  to  our  native  troops,  but  still  they 
look  uncommonly  well.  Scindia's  troops  are  his  hobby  and  delight. 
They  are  fairly  paid,  and  well  cared  for,  and  appear  to  be  under  proper 
discipline.  But  a  day  may  come,  and  probably  will  come,  when  they 
will  break  from  under  his  control.  It  is  a  great  pity  that  he  keeps  so 
many  of  them  together  at  one  place,  and  this  I  have  told  him.  I  have 
been  very  favourably  impressed  with  all  his  arrangements,  both  civil 
and  military,  and  he  has  evidently  much  more  administrative  ability  than 
he  has  had  credit  for.  I  think  also  that  he  is  more  favourably  disposed 
to  us  than  people  generally  imagine.  He  was  greatly  pleased  at  my 
visit,  the  effect  of  which  was,  as  he  said,  to  increase  his  reputation.  He 
showed  me,  without  hesitation  or  reserve,  everything  I  desired  to  see. 

One  incident  of  his  visit — and  the  only  contretemps  of  the  whole 


1865-66  THE   VICEROYALTY.  443 

— Lord  Lawrence  was  fond  of  telling  in  after  times  ;  indeed,  he 
told  it  to  my  informant,  Colonel  Henry  Yule,  on  the  Sunday  but 
one  preceding  his  death. 

It  had  been  arranged  by  Sir  Richard  Meade,  that  Sir  John  Law- 
rence should  visit  the  famous  fort  of  Gwalior,  which,  as  I  have 
mentioned,  was  now  held  by  our  own  troops,  at  a  particular  hour, 
and,  on  Sir  John's  suggestion,  Scindiawas  informed  of  the  proposed 
visit  and  invited  to  accompany  him.  No  answer  came  to  the  invi- 
tation, and  after  waiting  for  some  time  beyond  the  appointed  hour 
at  the  foot  of  the  fort  to  see  if  the  Mahratta  Prince  was  coming, 
Sir  John  went  in  without  him,  and  proceeded  with  his  inspection. 
While  he  was  thus  engaged,  a  Sepoy  came  running  up  to  say  that 
Scindia  had  arrived  at  another  gate,  and  the  Political  Agent,  Colo- 
nel Hutchinson,  was  sent  down,  post-haste,  to  receive  him  with  all 
honours.  But  Scindia  was  already  gone.  The  officer  in  charge  of 
the  gate  was  under  strict  orders  to  admit  no  armed  men  into  the 
fort,  and  had  therefore  demurred  to  the  entry  of  Scindia's  mounted 
escort  till  leave  was  given.  Scindia  took  his  watch  out,  saw  that 
he  had  come  late,  dashed  it  to  the  ground,  breaking  it  into  many 
fragments,  and  straightway  rode  off  in  high  wrath.  Sir  John  Law- 
rence was  much  distressed  at  the  untoward  termination  of  the  visit, 
but  the  mistake  was  soon  explained,  and  the  Viceroy  and  the 
Mahratta  Prince  parted  and  continued  excellent  friends. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE   VICEROYALTY.     1867— 1868. 

On  his  arrival  in  Calcutta,  Sir  John  Lawrence  threw  himself 
heartily  into  the  work  of  relieving  the  distress,  which  was  still  great, 
in  Orissa.  There  was  indeed  fresh  need  for  exertion  in  that  direc- 
tion ;  for,  in  August,  a  great  inundation  of  the  Mahanuddy  had 
taken  place,  laying  waste  a  tract  of  country  of  some  fifteen  hundred 
square  miles,  and  with  a  large  population  who  would  have  to  be 
supported  for  months  to  come.  An  appeal  to  the  Mansion  House 
for  help  failed,  for  once,  of  support.  The  distress  in  England  from 
frost,  from  strikes,  and  from  commercial  panic  seemed  to  absorb 
the  energies  of  philanthropists  at  home.  It  was  all  the  more  nec- 
essary, therefore,  for  Calcutta  to  exert  itself.  A  public  meeting 
was  called  at  Sir  John  Lawrence's  instance,  on  February  12  ;  and 
— a  step  unprecedented,  I  believe,  in  the  annals  of  British  India — 
the  Viceroy  himself  took  the  chair.  He  was  enthusiastically  re- 
ceived. In  his  speech,  he  told  his  audience  that  what  the  drought 
had  spared  the  wide  vortex  of  water  had  engulfed  ;  that  one-fifth 
or,  more  probably,  one-fourth  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  province  had 
perished  from  flood  and  famine  and  their  effects  ;  for,  as  usual. 
Pestilence  had  followed  closely  on  the  heels  of  Starvation.  Twenty- 
seven  thousand  tons  of  rice  must  be  imported  immediately  into  the 
province  to  support  the  survivors.  This  speech  helped  to  call 
forth  that  active  sympathy  of  the  governing  for  the  governed  which, 
in  times  of  prosperity,  is  often  latent,  but  which  needs  only  a  great 
calamity  to  call  forth  in  all  its  strength.  The  Viceroy  headed  the 
subscription  list  by  a  contribution  of  10,000  rupees,  or  1,000/.  His 
example  was  followed  by  others  according  to  their  means,  and  by 
these  and  other  measures  Orissa  was  able  to  tide  over  the  period  of 
distress. 

The  changes  in  the  Government  of  India  during  the  year  1867 
were  not  numerous,  but  they  were  important.  Sir  Bartle  Frere 
went  home  to  take  his  seat  in  Lord  Cranborne's  Council,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Seymour  Fitzgerald.     The  friction  between  the  two 

444 


1867-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  445 

Governments  on  matters  connected  with  the  Persian  Gulf,  with  the 
Public  Works  Department,  and  with  the  Bombay  Bank  had  con- 
tinued to  the  very  end.  But  that  there  was  no  unkindly  personal 
feeling  between  man  and  man,  is  clear  from  the  whole  course  of 
the  correspondence.  '  I  propose  leaving  India,'  so  says  Sir  Bartle 
Frere  in  the  last  sentence  of  his  last  letter  to  Sir  John  Lawrence, 
'  by  the  first  P.  &  O.  boat  after  Mr.  Fitzgerald  arrives.  I  earnestly 
trust  your  Excellency  may  have  health  and  strength  to  bear  all  the 
great  burden  of  this  vast  Empire  which  God's  providence  has  laid 
on  you.     I  wish  it  had  been  my  lot  to  do  more  to  lighten  it. ' 

Sir  William  Denison  had  retired  from  Madras  a  few  months  pre- 
viously, and  had  been  succeeded  by  Lord  Napier  and  Ettrick,  who 
had  done  all  that  he  could  to  alleviate  the  horrors  of  the  famine  in 
his  Presidency  by  going  in  person  to  the  parts  most  distressed,  and 
judging  with  his  own  eyes  as  to  what  should  be  done.  Sir  Cecil 
Beadon  went  home  in  March  ;  so  that  within  the  year,  all  three 
Presidencies  received  new  Governors.  Beadon  was  succeeded  by 
Grey,  one  of  the  civilian  members  of  Council,  '  a  very  able  and 
zealous  officer,'  said  the  Governor-General  when  recommending  him 
to  the  Secretary  of  State.  'There  is  no  one  available  for  the  post 
who  has  greater  claims,  or  who  is  better  fitted  for  it.  He  has  plenty 
of  moral  pluck,  and  is  very  conscientious  ;  two  very  useful  qualities 
in  dealing  with  people  down  here.' 

Sir  John  Lawrence  was  anxious  that  Grey's  place  in  Council 
should  be  taken  by  William  Muir,  his  Foreign  Secretary.  '  Muir,' 
he  says,  *  is  the  best  authority  I  know  on  all  questions  connected 
with  the  landed  tenures  and  customs  of  the  North-West  Provinces. 
He  is  a  first-rate  Oriental  scholar,  and  did  good  service  in  the 
Mutiny.  He  has  also  been  of  great  service  to  me  since  he  became 
Foreign  Secretary.  I  had  no  personal  acquaintance  with  him  until 
I  came  out  as  Governor-General.  He  will  be  a  useful  member  of 
Council  to  my  successor.  We  are  somewhat  weak,  as  regards  our 
civil  members  of  Council  at  present,  and,  unless  I  have  a  good  man 
to  succeed  Mr.  Grey,  we  shall  be  very  weak  indeed.' 

Lord  Cranborne  was  as  anxious  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  that  Muir 
should  get  the  place,  but  the  appointment  seems  to  have  practically 
rested  with  the  Secretary  of  State's  Council,  who  had  a  candidate 
of  their  own,  in  the  person  of  Sir  George  Yule,  a  member  of  an 
illustrious  brotherhood,  the  most  famous  of  whom,  Colonel  Henry 
Yule,  is  known,  to  his  personal  friends,  as  one  of  the  most  charm- 
ing, and  genial,  and  humorous  of  companions,  and  to  the  learned 
world  everywhere,  as  one  of  the  best  living  geographers,  and  the 


446  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

highly  accomplished  editor  of  *  Marco  Polo. '  There  was  nothing 
to  be  said  against  the  appointment  of  Sir  George  Yule,  except  that 
he  was  Resident  at  Hyderabad,  that  he  was  engaged  in  settling  im- 
portant differences  between  Sir  Salar  Jung  and  the  Nizam,  that  he 
did  not  himself  desire  the  change,  and  that  the  Governor-General 
thought  that  there  was  a  still  better  candidate  for  the  vacant  seat. 
*  He  has  strong  claims,'  said  Sir  John,  '  and  is  a  very  fine  fellow,  but 
is  a  man  of  action  rather  than  of  council.' 

The  matter  is  only  worth  dwelling  on  here,  owing  to  the  sore- 
ness which  Sir  John  Lawrence  felt  at  the  refusal  to  give  him  the 
man  of  his  choice.  He  thought  it  another  sign  that  the  Governor- 
General,  who  had  already  been  deprived  of  so  much  of  his  inde- 
pendence of  action,  was  destined  to  lose  still  more.  *  It  is  to  me,' 
he  writes  to  Lord  Cranborne,  *  a  great  mortification  personally,  and 
a  source  of  weakness  to  the  Government,  that  I  cannot  have  the 
man  who  I  believe  would  be  the  best  selection.  The  Governor- 
General  is  responsible  for  the  Avorking  of  the  whole  Government  of 
India,  and  yet  he  cannot  be  trusted  for  the  selection  of  a  member 
of  his  own  Council  !  How  then  is  it  possible  that  he  can  feel  that 
his  position  is  a  strong  one  ?  How,  in  short,  can  he  be  expected  to 
act  resolutely  in  any  difficulty  ? ' 

Muir,  however,  received  sufficient  marks  of  the  confidence  of  his 
superiors  by  being  made,  in  rapid  succession,  first  a  Companion, 
and  then  a  Knight  Commander  of  the  Star  of  India ;  while,  at  the 
close  of  the  year,  on  the  retirement  of  Drummond,  he  received  a 
post  for  which  he  was  perhaps  even  better  fitted  than  a  seat  in 
Council,  and  which  he  filled  for  his  full  term  of  office,  with  much 
credit  to  himself,  and  much  benefit  to  those  whom  he  ruled,  the 
Lieutenant-Governorship  of  the  North- West  Provinces. 

One  perplexing  subject  which  had  long  engaged  the  attention  of 
successive  Secretaries  of  State  and  Governors-General  now  received 
a  temporary  settlement.  A  question  had  been  raised,  whether  on 
the  death  of  the  existing  Maharaja  of  Mysore,  the  country  should 
be  annexed  or  given  back  to  native  rule.  Sir  John  Lawrence  had 
not  often  been  in  favour  of  annexation,  for  he  recognised  the  force 
of  the  argument  for  the  retention  of  native  states,  in  the  outlet 
which  they  give,  and  which,  unfortunately,  states  under  British  rule 
do  not  yet  give,  to  the  abilities  of  energetic  natives.  On  the  other 
hand,  Mysore  had  been  managed  by  us,  and  on  our  system,  for  a 
third  of  a  century,  and  to  give  it  back  to  be  ruled  at  the  absolute 
discretion  of  a  native  prince,  would,  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  knew  well, 
be,  too  surely,  to  undo  all  that  had  been  done  for  the  good  of  the 


1867-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  447 

people,  and  might  even  reduce  it  to  the  condition  of  the  effete  states 
of  Rajpootana.  It  was  determined  by  Lord  Cranborne,  after  much 
discussion,  that  the  treaty  rights  of  the  Maharaja  should  terminate 
at  his  death  ;  but  that  his  adopted  son,  if  he  turned  out  well,  might 
be  allowed  to  succeed  to  the  country,  under  such  conditions  as  the 
British  Government  might,  at  the  time,  see  fit  to  impose.  Of  course, 
this  was  a  postponement,  rather  than  a  settlement  of  the  question. 
But  it  got  the  matter  out  of  the  way,  saved  the  consumption  of 
much  time  and  paper,  and  left  a  matter  of  future  policy  to  be  de- 
termined by  those  who,  it  might  be  presumed,  would,  when  the  time 
came,  have  the  best  data  for  doing  so.'  ^  This  arrangement  and 
the  renewal  of  the  Government  guarantee  to  railways,  were  the  last 
acts  of  Lord  Cranborne  as  Secretary  of  State  for  India  ;  and  early 
in  March,  to  the  great  regret  of  the  Governor-General,  he  retired 
from  the  India  Office  and  from  the  Government. 

Calcutta  :  March  9,  1867. 
Dear  Lord  Cranborne, — I  write  to  express  my  very  sincere  concern 
and  regret  at  the  loss  we  shall  sustain  by  your  resignation  of  office.  I 
was  just  beginning  to  feel  that  we  were  about  to  undertake  a  decided  line 
of  policy.  It  is  a  great  evil,  I  venture  to  tiiink,  that  the  Secretary  of 
State  for  India  is  liable  to  so  constant  a  change  as  we  have  experienced 
(luring  the  last  few  months.  You  have,  in  your  term  of  office,  done  two 
great  things  ;  one,  the  setdement  of  the  grievances  of  the  officers  of  the 
old  local  army,  the  other,  the  placing  the  irrigation  question  in  India  on 
a  clear  and  satisfactory  footing,  ...  I  will  only  add  that  I  have  had 
much  pleasure  in  serving  under  you,  and  would  hail  your  return  to  the 
India  Office  with  great  satisfaction. 

How  far  Lord  Cranborne,  during  this  period,  agreed  or  did  not 
agree,  with  Sir  John  Lawrence's  foreign  policy,  I  shall  show  pres- 
ently. But  that  the  high  appreciation  evidenced  in  the  foregoing 
letter  was  reciprocated  by  him,  is  clear  from  a  letter  which  crossed  it. 

March  4. 
Dear  Sir  John  Lawrence, — You  will  have  already  heard,  by  telegraph, 
that  I  have  resigned  my  office,  and  that  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  succeeds 
me  ;  so  that  our  brief  official  connection  comes  to  a  close.  In  taking 
leave  of  you,  I  must  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  the  kind  and  loyal 
support  you  have  given  me,  and  the  unsparing  labour  you  have  devoted 
to  the  task  of  facilitating  the  official  course  of  one  so  ignorant  of  the 
subject-matter  of  my  duties  as   I   was  when   I  accepted  office.     With 

'  Mysore  has  latterly  been  made  over  to  the  young  Maharaja. 


448  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

every  wish  for  the  future  success  of  your  wise  anc!  beneficent  adminis- 
tration, 

Believe  me,  Yours  very  truly, 

Cranborne. 

Lord  Cranborne  was  succeeded  by  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  who, 
happily  for  the  interests  of  Indian  business,  retained  his  office 
for  a  longer  period  than  his  two  predecessors  together — for  nearly 
two  years,  that  is,  instead  of  only  a  few  months.  The  first  and 
the  most  troublesome  matter  brought  before  him  was  the  Budget 
just  promulgated  by  Massey,  the  Financial  Member  of  Council. 
There  was  a  deficit.  It  had  been  found  impracticable  to  reduce 
expenditure,  and,  there  must  be,  therefore,  some  additional  taxa- 
tion. But  the  proposal  made  was  unfortunate,  in  more  than  one 
respect  ;  for  though  there  was  nothing  unjust  in  its  main  feature,  a 
tax  on  trades  and  professions,  which  was  intended  to  reach  those 
large  classes  of  persons  who,  in  spite  of  their  considerable  wealth, 
had  hitherto  managed  to  shirk  their  share  of  the  public  burdens,  it 
was  open  to  serious  objection  in  its  details.  Moreover,  the  mode 
in  which  it  had  been  carried  was  objectionable,  for  it  had  been 
introduced  and  passed  through  Council  in  one  and  the  same  day. 
There  was  a  great  outcry  in  Calcutta.  An  indignation  meeting  was 
held,  the  cheering  at  which  was  so  vociferous  that  it  could  be 
heard, — so  it  was  said, — in  Government  House,  and  a  petition  was 
drawn  up  and  sent  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  begging  him  to  veto 
the  Budget.  The  agitation  proved  nothing  in  itself,  for  as  suc- 
cessive Governors-General  and  Secretaries  of  State  have  found  to 
their  cost,  and  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  often  bitterly  complains,  a 
large  part  of  the  English  community  in  India,  while  they  are  will- 
ing enough  to  propose  an  increase  of  taxation  on  the  natives  and  to 
clamour  for  increased  expenditure  in  all  directions,  are  not  so  will- 
ing to  contribute  their  share  towards  it.  But,  in  this  case,  they  had 
a  reasonable  ground  for  complaint,  of  which  agitators  would,  nat- 
urally, make  the  most.  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  himself  been  in 
favour  of  an  Income  rather  than  a  License  Tax,  and  had  written 
to  Lord  Cranborne  to  that  effect  some  months  before.  He  had 
also  urged  the  Finance  Minister  to  promulgate  the  measure  in 
proper  time,  but  without  result.  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  as  a  prac- 
tised financier,  was  still  more  alive  to  the  inconsistencies  of  the 
measure.  But  he  was  new  to  office,  and  was  reluctant  to  tie  the 
hands  of  the  Government  of  India  on  a  matter  on  which  they  ought 
to  know  more  than  he.  However  it  will  be  well  to  let  Sir  John 
Lawrence  speak  for  himself  in  this  matter. 


I867-6S  THE   VICEROYALTY.  449 

Calcutta  :  March  2S,  1867. 
Dear  Sir  Stafford  Northcote, — .  .  .  Yesterday,  a  meeting-  was  held  in 
the  Town  Hall  of  Calcutta  in  condemnation  of  the  License  Tax.  The 
speeches  have  not  yet  been  published,  but  they  were  in  support  of  this 
view,  with  the  usual  amount  of  vilification,  I  hear  that  they  point  to  an 
Income  Tax  as  more  suitable  than  such  a  License  Tax.  Next  Council 
day,  we  shall  reconsider  the  whole  question,  and  decide  whether  any 
modification  of  the  tax  is  expedient  or  not.  .  .  .  But  my  object  in  now 
writing  to  you  is  to  beg  that  you  will  support  the  Government  of  India 
in  whatever  we  may  decide  on  in  the  matter.  If  we  are  overruled,  if 
the  License  Tax  is  vetoed,  I  cannot  conceal  from  myself  the  conviction 
that  all.  taxation  which  can  affect,  in  any  material  degree,  the  non-official 
English  community  will  be  impracticable.  So  far  as  their  voices  go, 
they  will  approve  of  no  tax  of  the  kind.  They  desire  that  all  taxation 
should  fall  on  the  natives,  and  more  especially  on  the  poorer  classes. 
Thus,  they  would  advocate  an  increase  of  the  Salt  Tax,  which  is  already, 
in  my  mind,  too  high.  The  English  community  have  objected  to  the 
Income  Tax.  It  was  mainly  through  their  influence  that  it  was  not 
continued  in  1865-66.  They  objected  also,  in  the  same  year,  to  the 
small  export  duties  on  tea,  coffee,  jute,  &c.,  and  then  succeeded  in  get- 
ting them  disallowed.  It  was  mainly  in  deference  to  their  views  that 
the  License  Tax  was  adopted  this  year  in  preference  to  an  Income  Tax. 
They  say  that  no  additional  taxation  is  necessary,  and  that  half  a  million 
on  the  year  of  deficit  is  of  no  importance.  But  they  forget  that  the  real 
deficit  on  the  year  is  calculated  at  two  millions,  and  that  both  in  1865-66 
and  1866-67  we  really  created  additional  debt  equal  to  one  million  for 
each  year.  The  English  community  almost  universally  lend  their  influ- 
ence in  favour  of  increased  expenditure  of  various  kinds.  But  when  it 
comes  to  taxation  to  meet  the  extra  cost,  they  resist  their  share  of  the 
burthen. 

April  g. 

.  .  .  One  of  the  points  on'which  the  public  complain  is  the  short 
notice  which  was  given  prior  to  passing  the  License  Tax  Act.  This 
seems  to  me  a  just  complaint,  and  I  did  all  in  my  power  to  get  it  pub- 
lished previous  to  the  Budget  being  brought  forward.  But  my  efforts 
were  of  little  use.  It  is  not  very  easy  to  move  our  Financial  member. 
We  well  knew,  months  ago,  that  some  extra  taxation  would  be  necessary, 
and  I  had  even  written  fully  to  Lord  Cranborne,  and  received  his  reply 
on  the  pros  and  cons  of  an  Income  Tax  versus  a  License  Tax.  With 
the  present  system  of  division  of  work  in  the  Council,  and  the  limited 
influence  which,  from  one  circumstance  or  the  other,  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral possesses,  it  is  very  difficult  for  him  to  get  a  thing  done  when  the 
Councillor  of  a  Department  desires  to  keep  it  back. 

Simla  :   May  14. 

.    .    .    The  difficulty  of  increasing  our  income  by  new  taxation  is  im- 
mense.    All  new  taxation   is  especially  odious  to  the  people  of  India. 
What  may  be  bearable  in  one  i)rovince  is  especially  disliked  in  another. 
VOL.  II.— 29 


450  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

What  the  natives  will  consent  to  does  not  suit  the  Englishman  who  prac- 
tically considers  it  his  prerogative,  while  in  India,  to  pay  no  taxation  at 
all.  As  regards  the  License  Tax,  I  quite  agree  with  you  that  it  should 
have  been  carried  to  a  higher  amount.  But  the  objection  raised  to  this 
was  that  it  would  practically  make  it  an  Income  Tax,  which  no  one 
wanted.  The  original  proposal  by  Mr.  Massey  was  simply  for  a  License 
Tax  on  trade.  It  was  enlarged  so  as  to  include  the  services  and  pro- 
fessions, because  the  exclusion  of  these  had  been  fatal  to  Mr.  Harington's 
License  Tax  in  1862.  Bad  as  an  Income  Tax  may  be,  I  think,  on  the 
whole,  it  is  better  than  a  License  Tax  ;  for  it  will  attack  the  purses  of 
the  rich  rather  than  the  poor ;  and  if  the  rate  be  low — say  two  per  cent. 
— it  can  really  injure  no  one.  But,  in  that  case,  we  should  work,  for  as 
correct  returns  as  may  be  practicable. 

Some  remarks  make  by  Lord  Cranborne  in  the  course  of  a  de- 
bate in  the  House  of  Commons  on  Mysore,  as  to  the  comparative 
merits  of  EngHsh  and  Native  rule  in  India,  seemed  to  Sir  John 
Lawrence  to  call  for  a  careful  investigation  of  the  subject  ;  and  by 
his  direction  a  series  of  reports,  based  on  admitted  facts  and  sta- 
tistics, as  well  as  on  a  wide  personal  experience,  were  drawn  up  by 
the  most  competent  authorities  in  India.  The  upshot  of  the  whole 
was  to  leave  it  beyond  a  doubt  that  if  our  rule  was  unpopular  in 
India,  it  was  certainly  not  because  it  did  not  tend  to  the  peace  and 
the  security,  the  prosperity  and  the  progress  of  every  part  of  it. 
The  increase  of  population  everywhere,  the  construction  of  roads 
and  canals,  the  building  of  hospitals  and  dispensaries,  the  spread 
of  education,  the  disappearance  of  the  extortioner  and  the  informer, 
the  Thug  and  the  Dacoit,  the  attempts  to  lessen  or  to  prevent  the 
miseries  caused  by  flood  and  tempest,  by  pestilence  and  famine, 
all  told  the  same  tale  of  a  Government  which,  if  it  made  many 
mistakes,  in  that  it  left  so  few  outlets  to  native  talent,  was  too  en- 
amoured of  legal  forms,  had  too  little  real  insight  into  the  native 
character,  was  too  anxious  to  engraft  Western  progress  wholesale 
on  Eastern  conservatism  and  stagnation,  yet  its  very  faults  were  all 
on  virtue's  side,  and  its  whole  energies  were  directed  to  the  dis- 
charge of  its  vast  and  splendid  duties. 

The  following  letter  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  Sir  Stafford  North- 
cote  has  some  general  bearing  on  the  subject,  and  is  the  result  of 
an  almost  unique  experience  : — 

Simla:  June  25,  1867. 

...  I  may  say  with  perfect  truth  that  I  have  never  been  connected 
with  any  great  measure  of  annexation,  except  as  regards  that  of  the  Pun- 
jab; and,  in  that  case,  I  was  only  concerned  in  carrying  out  the  measure 
and  not  in  the  policy  of  annexation  itself.    I  think  that  there  is  much  to  say 


1867-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  45 1 

against  the  absorption  of  large  native  Chiefships,  especially  on  the  point 
which  was  adverted  to  in  the  Mysore  debate,  namely,  the  loss  of  employ- 
ment to  natives  of  rank  and  respectability.  But  to  the  mass  of  the 
people,  it  appears  to  me,  in  the  case  of  Mysore,  that  the  change  has 
proved  of  unmixed  benefit.  I  do  not  say  that  there  are  no  points  of  our 
administration  where  the  shoe  does  not  pinch  ;  I  fully  admit  that  the 
reverse  is  the  case.  But  what  I  do  affirm,  and  what  I  believe  inquiry 
would  prove,  is  that  the  benefits  of  our  system  are  great  and  palpable  ; 
and,  moreover,  are  appreciable  by  all  the  industrious  classes. 

It  is  a  fact  which  could  easily  be  proved  by  the  records  of  the  Foreign 
Office  that  in  almost  every  case  in  which  Lord  Canning  gave  large  tracts 
of  country  for  service  during  the  Mutiny,  the  people  have,  over  and  over 
again,  complained,  and  asked,  with  earnestness,  for  our  interference. 
Such  has  been  the  case  as  regards  the  Nawab  of  Rampore,  the  Maha- 
raja of  Bikaneer,  the  chiefs  of  Puttiala  and  Jheend,  the  Nawab  Begum  of 
Bhopal,  and  others.  If  our  government  of  India  was  not  very  much 
better  than  that  of  native  chiefs,  it  would  be  indeed  impossible  for  us  to 
hold  the  country  with  the  body  of  British  troops  allotted  for  the  pur- 
pose. If  we  left  India  to-morrow,  I  believe  that  war  and  rapine  would 
again  prevail,  and  that,  in  a  few  short  years,  it  would  become  very  much 
in  the  state  from  which  we  rescued  it. 

I  was  a  good  deal  surprised  at  the  story  which  Lord  Cranborne  told 
on  Sir  G.  Clerk's  authority.  While  I  admit  that  cases  of  the  kind  may 
occur  when  people  of  our  territory  flee  into  foreign  states,  I  believe  that 
it  could  be  easily  shown  that,  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  the  facts  were 
the  other  way.  Thousands  of  exiles  from  Oude  returned  into  that  prov- 
ince after  annexation.  The  Delhi  territory,  when  I  was  a  young  man, 
was  full  of  people  from  the  adjacent  Chiefships.  The  Mohammedan 
portions  of  the  Punjab  were  in  many  parts  deserted  by  the  landed  pro- 
prietors during  Sikh  rule.  But  they  flocked  back  under  us.  In  the 
great  famine  of  1837-38,  the  North-Western  Provinces  were  full  of  im- 
migrants from  Bhurtpore,  the  Chiefship  of  Bundelkund,  and  other  inde- 
pendent states.  Of  all  the  cases  in  which  annexation  has  taken  place,  or 
has  been  advocated,  I  know  of  none  in  which  the  argument  for  that 
measure  has  appeared  to  me  so  strong  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  Mysore.  Now, 
however,  that  we  have  decided  on  maintaining  the  present  dynasty,  it 
only  remains  for  us  to  carry  out  that  policy  in  a  true  and  honest  spirit, 
and,  with  this  object,  I  come  to  the  points  discussed  in  your  letter.  .  .  . 

The  establishment  of  anything  like  a  constitutional  government  would 
prove  an  uncommonly  difficult  matter.  The  essence  of  native  rule  con- 
sisis  in  the  will  and  pleasure  of  the  chief.  Even  we,  often,  think  so. 
When  the  Dhar  chief,  some  two  years  ago,  was  allowed  to  assume  the 
management  of  his  country  at  the  suggestion  of  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Meade,  the  Political  officer,  I  stipulated  that  a  certain  amount  of  author- 
ity should  be  continued  to  his  Dew  an  (minister).  This  was  disapproved 
of  from  home.  Scarcely  in  any  state  could  a  really  good  minister  hold 
his  own,  unless  supported  by  us.     Salar  Jung  would  not  be  in  power  for 


452  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

three  months  without  sucli  aid.  No  doubt  it  is  the  ministers  who,  under 
such  circumstances,  rule  the  country.  But  this,  under  a  weak  and  vi- 
cious prince,  is  inevitaljle,  it  there  is  to  be  any  government  at  all.  A  body 
of  ministers  usually  degenerate  into  a  set  of  parasites,  who  encourage 
the  chief  in  vicious  indulgence,  while  they  waste  the  resources  of  the 
State  and  fill  their  own  pockets.  Respectable  men  fall  into  disgrace  and 
are  turned  out. 

I  have  now  before  me  two  instances  of  the  kind,  in  the  Puttiala  and 
Nabha  Chiefships  in  the  Punjab.  In  the  first,  the  Maharaja  is  a  fine 
young  fellow  of  fifteen  years  of  age,  promising  to  grow  up  to  be  a  giant 
in  size  and  strength.  Under  a  proper  system,  and  with  good  instruction, 
he  ought  to  make  a  good  native  ruler.  But  the  Regency,  the  very  men 
selected  by  his  father,  are  afraid  of  him,  and  are  each  looking  out  for  the 
day  when  he  will  come  into  power  and  may  avenge  on  them  any  fancied 
ill-treatment  on  their  part. 

The  other  chief,  the  chief  of  Nabha,  is  now  about  twenty-four  years  of 
age,  and  succeeded  his  brother  a  short  time  ago.  They  were  both 
brought  up  under  the  tutelage  of  carefully  selected  natives,  who  managed 
the  country  during  their  minority.  The  elder  brother  gave  much  prom- 
ise of  character  and  ability,  but  died  early.  The  present  chief  is  a 
miserable  creature  in  the  hands  of  buffoons  and  scamps,  and  there  is  no 
knowing  what  to  do  with  him. 

Here  is  another  extract  on  the  same  subject  : — 

Simla  :  June  2g,  1S67. 
.  .  .  Curiously  enough,  just  as  I  had  finished  my  letter  to  you,  discuss- 
ing the  relative  merits  of  native  and  English  administration  in  India,  I 
lighted  on  a  patent,  or,  as  we  call  it  in  this  country,  a  sjcnmid,  from 
General  Avitabile,  the  Governor  of  Peshawur,  some  twenty-five  years 
ago,  on  the  part  of  the  Sikhs,  granting  a  service  tenure  of  two  villages, 
on  the  condition  of  furnishing  the  heads  of  fifty  Afridis,  or  hill  men,  an- 
nually !  This  will  give  you  some  idea  of  their  system  on  the  Border. 
When  Sikh  rule  was  in  force  in  the  Peshawur  valley,  a  Sikh  official  dared 
not  miove  into  the  interior  with  less  than  a  couple  of  hundred  armed  men 
to  guard  him,  and  he  could  not  enter  Eusofzye  with  less  than  a  brigade. 
Now,  a  couple  of  police  horsemen  suffice.  I  have  ridden  all  along  the 
frontier,  in  former  days,  escorted  by  half  a  dozen  men. 

An  atrocious  act  of  treachery  and  murder  committed  by  the 
Nawab  of  Tonk,  a  Mussulman  state  situated  in  the  heart  of  Rajpoo- 
tana,  showed,  as  in  the  case  of  Bahawulpore  and  Joudpore,  that  the 
Viceroy,  with  all  his  dislike  to  imnecessary  interference  in  the  affairs 
of  semi-independent  states,  would  not  tolerate  such  abuses.  The 
Nawab  had  abetted,  if  he  had  not  actually  ordered,  the  murder  of 
some  fourteen  attendants  of  one  of  his  feudatories,  and  he  was  now 
straightway  deposed  and  banished  by  Sir  John  Lawrence.     It  was 


1867-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  453 

an  act  of  vigour  which  cost  not  a  drop  of  blood,  was  well  received 
throughout  India,  and  gave  a  salutary  warning  to  the  rulers  of  na- 
tive states  that  they  must  mend  their  ways,  as  the  rulers  of  Bhopal 
and  Gwalior  had  long  since  done,  or  take  the  consequences. 

Outside  the  limits  of  India  proper,  there  was  much  to  occupy  the 
attention  of  the  Governor-General  during  this  and  the  following 
year.  To  say  nothing,  at  present,  of  the  anarchy  in  Afghanistan, 
which  seemed  at  last  to  be  nearing  a  temporary  conclusion,  a  com- 
mercial treaty  was,  after  long  negotiations,  concluded  on  favourable 
terms  with  the  King  of  Burmah.  This  was  followed  up  by  a  com- 
mercial expedition  to  Yun-Nan,  a  province  in  the  South- West  of 
China,  then  held  by  the  Panthay  Mohammedans,  who,  after  centu- 
ries of  passive  resistance  to  persecution,  had,  for  the  time,  estab- 
lished their  independence,  and  were  found  by  the  Mission  to  be 
disposed  to  be  on  friendly  terms  with  us.  Friendly  communications 
were  also  received  from  Yakub  Beg,  one  of  those  half  military, 
half  religious  geniuses  which  Islam,  even  in  its  decay,  seems  always 
capable  of  producing ;  and  who,  after  throwing  off  the  Chinese 
yoke,  and  introducing  order  into  some  of  the  most  disorderly  coun- 
tries in  the  world — Kashgar,  Yarkand,  and  Khoten — seemed  dis- 
posed to  turn  to  us  as  his  natural  protectors  from  his  natural  foes, 
who  were  threatening  him  from  opposite  sides  at  the  same  moment 
— the  Chinese  and  the  Russians.  An  envoy  from  the  Khan  of 
Bokhara,  who  was  also  alarmed  at  the  progress  of  the  Russians  in 
his  direction,  was  hospitably  received  at  Calcutta,  but  decisively 
informed  that  we  could  not  aid  him.  A  small  expedition  to  the 
Nicobar  Islands  put  down  piracy  in  one  of  its  native  seats  ;  and, 
finally,  a  Avar  which  had  long  been  hanging  over  us,  and  ought 
probably  to  have  been  undertaken  sooner,  if  it  was  to  be  under- 
taken at  all,  broke  out  with  Abyssinia. 

For  four  years  past,  Theodore,  the  Abyssinian  king,  had  been 
holding  in  durance  vile  at  his  Capital  Captain  Cameron,  our  consul 
at  Massowah,  and  some  Germans,  who  were  agents  of  an  English 
missionary  society.  They  had  acted  with  very  little  discretion  in 
the  matter,  and  the  knowledge  of  this  had  tended  to  tie  the  hands 
of  the  English  Government.  At  last  an  Armenian  named  Rassam, 
was  sent  to  demand  their  release.  But  he  too  was  thrown  into 
prison  by  the  Abyssinian  monarch,  whose  savage  pride  had  been 
offended  by  an  unfortunate  omission  on  the  part  of  the  Secretary  of 
State  to  answer  a  letter  which  he  had  addressed  to  the  Queen.  War 
was  now  decided  on.  But  it  was  not  till  the  summer  of  1S67,  that  it 
Avas  finally  declared.     Sir  John  Lawrence  was  warmly  in  favour  of 


454  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

action,  and  in  one  of  his  earliest  letters  on  the  subject  to  the  Secre- 
tary of  State,  he  took  occasion  to  press  upon  him  the  claims  of  Sir 
Robert  Napier  for  the  chief  command.  '  Napier  is  an  ofificer  of 
forty-four  years'  standing  in  the  Royal  Engineers.  He  greatly  dis- 
tinguished himself  during  the  Mutiny  in  1857.  He  was  the  second 
in  command  in  the  China  Expedition,  and  was,  by  all  accounts,  the 
life  and  soul  of  that  campaign.' 

The  expedition  was  to  be  fitted  out  from  India,  and  the  position 
of  Napier  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Bombay  army  marked 
him  out,  irresj'jective  of  his  previous  services,  as  the  right  man  to 
be  entrusted  with  the  command.  With  Sir  John  Lawrence's  full 
approval — for  he  knew  that  Napier  was  equal  to  it — the  whole  re- 
sponsibility for  all  the  arrangements,  commissariat,  military,  and 
political,  was  thrown  upon  him.  With  what  admirable  foresight 
every  detail  of  the  expedition  was  planned,  and  the  whole  brought, 
in  the  space  of  a  single  campaign  of  only  a  few  months'  duration, 
to  the  most  triumphant  issue  by  the  capture  of  Magdala,  the  suicide 
of  Theodore,  and  the  rescue  of  his  captives  from  their  living  death, 
is  too  well  known  to  be  related  here. 

To  no  one  did  the  result  give  keener  pleasure  than  to  Napier's 
old  friend  and  chief.  Sir  John  Lawrence. 

The  news  from  Magdala  (he  writes  to  Sir  Stafford  Northcote)  is  really 
glorious.  So  far  as  I  can  judge  by  the  telegrams,  everything  has  turned 
out  most  happily.  We  have  achieved  all  that  could  be  desired,  and  have 
averted  the  dangers  of  a  long  campaign.  I  think  that  the  English  Gov- 
ernment should  give  Napier  a  pension.  He  has  saved  nothing,  and  his 
health  is  a  good  deal  broken,  I  suspect. 

The  pension  was  given  and  a  peerage  with  it  to  the  splendid 
soldier  who  had  planned  and  carried  out  the  whole,  and  there  were 
two,  and  only  two,  drawbacks  to  the  unalloyed  satisfaction  with 
which  the  Abyssinian  war  might  otherwise  have  been  viewed.  The 
one  was  its  enormous  cost ;  the  other  the  fact  that  India,  with  its 
disorganised  finances,  was  called  upon  to  pay  a  large  part  of  the 
expense  of  a  war  which  had  been  undertaken  not  for  Indian  but 
for  '  Imperial '  purposes — purposes,  in  fact,  in  which  India  was 
neither  directly  nor  indirectly  interested.  Sir  Robert  Napier  had 
never  from  his  earliest  days, — as  few  readers  of  this  biography  will 
need  to  be  reminded, — cared  to  do  anything  cheaply.  Whether  it 
was  a  bridge,  or  a  road,  or  a  canal  or,  as  in  this  instance,  a  cam- 
paign, it  must  be  done  in  the  best  possible  way,  regardless  of  ex- 
pense, and  nothing  must  be  left  to  chance. or  to  the  future.      It  was 


1867-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  455 

a  noble  failing ;  and  that  war  is  never,  under  the  best  of  circum- 
stances, likely  to  be  other  than  a  very  costly  game,  is  not  altogether 
to  be  regretted  in  the  case  of  a  country  whose  opportunities  for 
plunging  into  it  are  so  numerous  and  so  tempting.  And  I  may  point 
out  here  that  not  the  least  of  the  services  rendered,  however  unin- 
tentionally, by  Lord  Napier  to  his  country,  rose  from  the  same 
idiosyncrasy.  For  while,  in  his  famous  Minute  of  1880  he  appeared 
to  advocate  the  retention  of  Candahar,  yet,  true  to  his  former  self, 
he  pointed  out  the  enormous  cost  by  which  alone,  in  his  opinion, 
that  retention  could  be  made  to  be  less  a  source  of  anxiety  than  of 
strength.  Called  in  by  those  who,  a  year  before,  had  been  straining 
at  the  annexation  of  the  whole  or  the  greater  part  of  Afghanistan, 
and  were  now  desperately  clutching  at  Candahar,  to  bless  their 
policy,  it  was  found  that,  in  his  perfect  candour,  Napier  had  cursed 
it  altogether.  And  so  the  retention  of  Candahar  has  been  consigned, 
along  with  the  '  scientific  frontier,'  and  other  projects  which  accom- 
panied or  followed  it,  to  that  limbo  which  is  their  proper  home. 

All  the  unaccomplish'd  works  of  Nature's  hand, 
Abortive,  monstrous,  or  unkindly  mix'd, 
Dissolved  on  earth,  fleet  hither,  and  in  vain, 
Till  final  dissolution,  wander  here  ; 

The  other  question,  whether  the  cost  of  the  Abyssinian  war  should, 
or  should  not,  be  borne,  in  part,  by  India,  was  one  on  which  there 
was  a  serious  difference  of  opinion  between  Sir  John  Lawrence  and 
Sir  Stafford  Northcote.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  on  which  side  Sir 
John  Lawrence,  unable  as  he  was,  with  all  his  care,  to  make  both 
ends  meet,  was  likely  to  throw  the  weight  of  his  opinion.  And,  in 
view  of  the  importance  which  the  question  has  since  assumed  in  re- 
lation to  the  Afghan  war,  and  may  assume  again,  at  any  moment,  I 
think  it  well  to  quote  here  some  passages  from  his  letters. 

Umballah:  Nov.  4,  1867. 
I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  of  the  decision  that  India  is  to  continue  to  pay 
for  the  ordinary  expenses  of  the  troops  employed  from  this  country  in 
Abyssinia.  It  does  not  appear  to  me  to  be  a  fair  arrangement,  and  I 
fully  anticipate  that  it  will  create  a  good  deal  of  excitement  and,  per- 
haps, some  indignation  ;  the  more  particularly  as  our  finances  are  now 
at  a  very  low  ebb.  Surely  this  is  neither  a  question  of  hiring  or  lending, 
but  simply  one  of  payment  by  the  country  which  employs  the  troops.  I 
believe  that  I  am  right  in  saying  that  all  the  expenses  of  the  British  troops 
employed  in  the  Mutiny  who  came  from  England,  were  paid  out  of  the 
revenues  of  India.  I  recollect  very  well  that  in  1859  and  i860,  India 
was  even  charged  for  the  cost  of  unreasonably  large  numbers  of  men 


456  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

who  were  accumulated  in  the  depots  in  England,  nominally  for  the  In- 
dian service.  Then  again,  in  the  last  China  war,  all  the  pay,  and  all 
the  expenses  of  the  troops  sent  from  India  to  China  were  charged  to 
England.  In  the  war  with  Persia  in  1855-56,  the  expenses  of  the  cam- 
paign were  divided  between  India  and  England,  because  it  was  consid- 
ered that  both  countries  were  interested  in  the  objects  of  the  war.  In 
the  present  case  India  has  no  interest  whatever  in  the  Abyssinian  expe- 
dition, and  it  appears  therefore  to  me  that  she  should  pay  none  of  its  cost. 

And  again,  on  January  2,  1868  : — 

I  hope  you  will  forgive  me  when  I  say  that  I  cannot  go  with  you  in  much 
which  you  advanced  in  the  debate  regarding  the  Abyssinian  expedition. 
I  am  sure  that  the  general  feeling  in  India,  especially  among  the  natives, 
will  be  that  it  is  unjust  to  charge  India  with  the  cost  of  the  ordinary  ex- 
penses of  the  troops.  It  seems  to  me  that  Lord  Cranborne  effectively  dis- 
posed of  all  the  arguments  in  support  of  the  measure.  I  was  not  aware 
that  any  portion  of  the  cost  of  the  last  China  war  had  been  debited 
against  India.  I  am  sure  that  it  ought  not  to  have  been  so.  If  this  can 
be  done  in  one  case,  it  will  be  done  in  others,  and  on  a  larger  scale.  In 
fact  I  see  no  limit  to  the  demands  which  may  be  made,  in  this  way,  on 
India.  I  cannot  admit  that  India  has  the  slightest  interest  in  the  question 
at  issue  between  England  and  King  Theodore.  We  shall  be  neither 
stronger  nor  weaker  out  here,  if  he  is  duly  punished  for  his  misdeeds. 
Abyssinia  is  too  distant  from  India  ;  the  communications  between  the 
two  countries  are  too  slight  for  the  people  of  India  to  take  any  interest 
in  what  goes  on  in  the  former  part  of  the  world. 

The  true  grounds  of  the  war  are  the  vindication  of  England's  honour, 
and  the  propriety  of  doing  all  we  can  to  release  the  captives.  If  Eng- 
land could  not  afford  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  war,  and  if  the  finances 
of  India  were  in  a  flourishing  condition,  the  Government  of  India,  as  the 
representatives  of  the  interests  of  the  people,  might  perhaps  have  been 
asked  to  contribute  its  quota.  But  the  case  is  exactly  the  other  way. 
India  is  really  a  poor  country.  The  actual  condition  of  the  masses  of 
the  people  is  a  bare,  I  might  say,  a  miserable  existence.  We,  its  rulers, 
are  at  our  wits'  end  to  increase  the  amount  of  taxation,  to  devise  new 
sources  of  public  revenue,  which  may  be  remunerative  and  not  ex- 
tremely unpopular.  And  it  is  at  this  time  that  it  has  been  decided  by 
the  Parliament  of  England  that  India  must  bear  a  portion  of  the  expenses 
of  a  war  in  which  it  has  really  and  truly  no  interest  !  India  is  rigorously 
required  to  pay  all  the  expenses  of  every  British  soldier  required  in  India, 
and  even  to  supply  a  sum  which  will  cover  the  cost  of  keeping  up  this 
force  ;  and  yet,  when  a  portion  of  these  very  troops  leave  the  country 
they  are  still  to  be  at  the  charge  of  India  !  It  seems  to  me  an  arrange- 
ment which  cannot  be  justified.  Further,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  public  interests  in  India  run  a  certain  risk,  and  are  put  to  considerable 
inconvenience  by  the  absence  of  these  troops  from  India.  We  suffer,  in  a 
political  point  of  view,  a  certain  damage  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  British 


1867-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  457 

portion  of  the  force  :  and,  as  regards  the  native  soldiers  employed  in  the 
expedition,  those  whom  we  are  now  raising  will  be  for  a  considerable 
time,  a  poor  substitute  for  those  that  are  gone. 

And  again,  on  January  20  : — 

It  is  quite  obvious  that  the  English  Government  of  the  day  were  to 
blame  for  allowing  Consul  Cameron  to  leave  his  proper  post,  Massowah, 
and  to  penetrate  into  Abyssinia,  and,  above  all,  for  allowing  him  to  act 
as  he  did.  Why  then  should  India  bear  a  share  of  the  cost  of  a  war 
which  has  been  thus  brought  on  ?  If  England  goes  to  war  on  points 
really  considered  to  be  connected  with  Indian  interests,  such,  for 
instance,  as  that  with  Persia  in  1856,  it  is  quite  fair  that  India  should 
share  the  cost.  But,  assuredly,  this  war  with  Abyssinia  does  not  come 
within  this  category.  It  has  been  ruled  in  England  that  all  troops 
furnished  for  Indian  purposes  shall  be  paid  out  of  her  revenues.  Con- 
sequently, all  troops  furnished  by  India  for  English  objects  should  be  main- 
tained out  of  England's  revenues.  This  seems  to  me  a  simple,  fair  mode 
of  dealing.  It  is  one  which  English  statesmen  have  insisted  on  as  regards 
India.  I  myself  much  doubt  if  a  just  balance  could  be  struck  between 
England  and  India,  whether  it  would  turn  out  to  be  against  India.  Un- 
fortunately for  the  interests  of  India,  the  scales  would  be  held,  the  ques- 
tion would  be  decided,  by  Englishmen,  who  have  a  greater  interest  in 
England's  side  of  the  question  than  in  that  of  India.  India  is  treated  very 
differently  to  the  colonies.  No  one  would  think  of  asking  any  of  the 
latter  to  pay  a  portion  of  the  war  expenses  of  Abyssinia.  No  statesmen 
would  charge  Canada  or  Australia  for  a  part  of  the  cost  of  men-of-war 
which  protect  their  commerce.  Considering  the  enormous  advantages 
which  England  reaps  from  the  possession  of  India,  the  immense  profits 
of  the  trade  with  her,  the  great  outlet  which  she  furnishes  for  England's 
sons,  the  vast  fortunes  which  are  made  out  here  and  poured  into  Eng- 
land, surely,  the  trifling  share  of  the  charges  of  the  men-of-war  in  the 
Indian  seas  may  not  be  grudged.  ...  If  our  finances  in  India  were 
flourishing,  I  would  not  say  a  word  on  this  subject.  But  the  contrary  is 
the  case.  And  while  we  are  urged  on  all  sides  to  expend  money,  and 
much  indeed  ought  to  be  laid  out,  our  treasury  is  very  low,  we  have  the 
utmost  difficulty  in  replenishing  it,  and  we  cannot  do  so  without  exciting 
great  discontent,  which  again,  of  itself,  becomes  a  serious  political  evil. 

There  were  other  points  of  importance,  such  as  the  changes  re- 
quired in  the  administration  of  Bengal,  the  advantages  of  Calcutta 
as  a  capital,  the  financial  independence  of  the  local  governments, 
the  best  method  of  managing  the  resuscitated  Bombay  Bank,  on 
which  there  were  considerable  differences  of  opinion  between  Sir 
John  Lawrence  and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote.  But  the  questions  on 
which  they  were  agreed  were  more  numerous  and  important  still. 
Such  were  the  subjects  of  irrigation,  of  the  com])arative  im])ortance 
of  canals  and  of  railways,  of  the  bearing  of  Europeans,  particularly 


458  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

of  non-official  Europeans,  towards  the  natives,  of  the  annual  move 
of  the  Governor-General  and  his  Council  to  Simla,  of  the  necessity 
for  economy,  the  deposition  of  native  rulers  in  case  of  gross  mis- 
government,  and  the  whole  question  of  foreign  policy  which  under- 
lay so  many  of  the  others,  and  on  which  I  shall  have  much  to  say 
in  the  next  chapter.  Many  letters  of  permanent  value  passed  be- 
tween the  two  men  on  these  and  other  subjects,  but  I  have  no 
space  to  quote  from  them.  Sir  John  Lawrence  found  throughout 
that  it  was  much  more  difficult  to  work  with  his  Council  than  with 
the  Secretary  of  State.  He  thought  that  his  Council  did  not  give  him 
that  general  support  which  he  had  a  right  to  expect  from  them, 
and  that  some  of  the  members,  notably  Sir  Henry  Durand,  set 
themselves  deliberately  to  thwart  him.  His  health  showed  symp- 
toms of  failing,  and  he  felt  half  disposed  to  throw  up  his  burden- 
some office  in  the  following  winter,  when  he  would  have  held  it  for 
the  term  of  full  four  years.  Two  private  letters  to  his  intimate 
friend  Captain  Eastwick  throw  some  light  on  his  troubles. 

Simla  :  August  3,  1867, 
.  The  difficulties  in  carrying  on  the  Government  out  here  seem 
to  me  to  increase  daily.  The  writing,  discussing,  and  worrying  nec- 
essary to  carry  out  important  matters  are  very  great,  and  the  composi- 
tion of  the  Council  is  less  influential  than  ever.  Yule  is  a  fine  fellow, 
and,  personally,  more  acceptable  to  me  than  Grey.  But  his  health  is 
not  good,  and  he  will,  probably,  be  obliged  to  go  home.  Unless  I  can 
get  a  good  man  in  his  place  we  shall  most  likely  break  down.  Maine 
goes  home  in  September,  for  three  or  four  months,  Massey  in  March 
next,  so  that  only  Durand  and  Taylor  will  remain.  Thus  there  will  be 
a  great  clearance.  I  wish  that  I  could  ensure  a  good  set  in  their  room, 
Massey  is  a  pleasant,  gentlemanlike  fellow,  with  no  want  of  ability  or 
knowledge,  but  he  is  too  old  to  have  come  to  India,  for  the  first  time,  at 
his  age,  and  his  heart  is  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  not  here.  He 
cares  little  for  what  goes  on  and  has  little  power  of  work. 

I  am  looking  out  for  what  may  be  said  in  Parliament  on  the  Orissa 
mistakes  and  on  the  Indian  Budget.  I  am  persuaded  that  the  Governor- 
General  is  not,  by  any  means,  sufficiently  strong.  He  is  practically 
responsible  for  all  which  occurs,  and  yet  his  power  is,  by  no  means, 
commensurate  with  such  responsibilities.  He  can  be  bearded  and 
thwarted  by  a  Councillor,  while  he  can  neither  select  them,  nor,  in 
any  way,  affect  their  interests.  Year  by  year,  the  non-official  interests 
are  becoming  stronger.  What  it  will  all  come  to  I  can  hardly  foresee, 
but  it  tends  towards  a  dead-lock.  Natives  in  some  cases,  and  broken- 
down  Englishmen  in  others,  have  got  hold  of  the  English  papers,  and 
sway  what  is  called  'public  opinion.' 

August  iS,   1867. 

I  am  not  at  all  well,  and  have  been  sufferinc:  a  crood  deal  of  late  from 


1867-68  THE  VICEROYALTY.  459 

my  old  complaint  in  the  head.  The  work  is  very  heavy,  and  from  one 
circumstance  and  another  presses  on  me  more  than  is  agreeable.  I  am 
not  at  all  sure  that  I  shall  not  break  down,  or,  at  any  rate,  find  it  too 
much  for  me.  Indeed,  I  had  all  but  made  up  my  mind  to  write  to  Sir 
Stafford  Northcote  to  this  effect,  and  ask  to  be  allowed  to  resign  from 
the  first  of  next  February,  when  I  shall  have  rather  more  than  completed 
my  four  years.  My  wife  was  very  desirous  for  me  to  do  so,  and  she  is 
in  delicate  health,  and  must  go  home.  But,  after  full  thought  and  a  con- 
siderable struggle  in  my  own  mind,  I  have  decided  to  stay  on  and  take 
my  chance.  If  I  find  that  I  cannot  do  the  work  any  longer,  of  course  I 
shall  go.  Everything  at  present  is  in  good  order.  The  country  is  quiet, 
and  apparently  content,  and  the  work  well  in  hand. 

These  letters  were  shown  by  Captain  Eastwick  to  Sir   Stafford 

Northcote,   and    the  opinion    which   the    Secretary  of   State   had 

formed  of  the  Governor-General, — '  one  of  our  noblest  men,'  as  he 

calls  him   in  a  letter  to  myself, — and   of  the  services  which   the 

prolongation  of  his  Viceroyalty  would  be  likely  to  render  to  India, 

may  be  gathered  from  his  reply. 

Balmoral  :  October  i,  1867. 

Captain  Eastwick  showed  me  a  letter  he  had  received  from  you,  on 
which  I  feel  it  impossible  not  to  say  something,  though  I  feel  it  almost 
equally  so  to  know  what  to  say.  My  hope  that  you  will  be  able  to  re- 
main at  your  post  is  so  strong.  I  should  rather  say  my  wish  is  so  great, 
that  I  am  afraid  I  may  urge  what  perhaps  I  ought  not.  For  I  am  sure 
you  would  not  think  of  coming  away  without  strong  reason,  and  I  should 
feel  very  guilty  if  I  were  to  press  you  to  expose  yourself  to  any  serious 
risk.  At  the  same  time,  I  am  anxious  to  represent  to  you  that  public 
attention  is  likely  to  be  much  directed  to  Indian  questions  next  year, 
and  that  some  organic  changes  may  probably  be  discussed,  if  not  de- 
cided upon.  At  all  events  it  is  likely  to  be  an  important  year  for  India, 
and  it  would  be  very  unfortunate  if  we  were  to  lose  you  while  these 
questions  are  being  settled.  I  can  only  say,  that  if  there  is  anything  I 
can  do  to  make  your  remaining  in  India  pleasanter  to  yourself,  I  trust 
you  will  mention  it.  I  am  afraid  I  may  have  occasioned  you  annoyance 
in  one  or  two  matters,  and  it  is  very  difficult  to  remember,  when  one  is 
addressing  an  English  audience,  that  that  there  is  an  audience  in  India 
to  be  considered.  But  I  hope  you  will  not  scruple  to  tell  me  freely  if 
I  ever  offend  in  this  way. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  thus  replied  : — 

Umballa  :  Nov.  4,  1867. 
I  have  to  thank  you  very  heartily  for  your  kind  expressions  towards 
me.  You  will  have  learned  by  this  time  that  I  have  quite  made  up  my 
mind  to  stay  in  India  for  another  year,  by  which  time  my  full  period  of 
service  as  Governor-General  will  have  expired,  unless  I  fail  very  ill  or 
some  very  untoward  event  may  occur.     I  cannot,  however,  help  saying 


460  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

that  I  shall  be  very  glad  when  that  time  expires  ;  for  I  do  not  feel  very 
happy  or  contented.  I  have  nothing  to  complain  of  from  you.  You 
have  always  treated  me  with  courtesy  and  consideration.  But  what  I 
do  feel  is  that  the  Governor-General  of  India,  nowadays,  has  not  that 
authority  and  influence  which  the  difficulties  and  responsibilities  of  his 
position  demand.  He  is  expected  to  do  great  things  ;  to  control,  to 
command,  and  to  overcome  ;  and  it  seems  to  me  to  be  impossible  in  the 
nature  of  things  that  he  can  do  this,  whatever  may  be  his  resolution.  In 
practice,  the  tendency  of  his  subordinate  rulers  in  high  places  is  to  re- 
resist  his  authority,  while  he  has  no  real  security  of  support  from 
home.  .  .  .  The  changes  to  which  you  refer  as  likely  to  occur  are  not 
likely  to  strengthen  the  Governor-General's  authority.  On  the  contrary 
they  are  pretty  sure  to  be  in  the  opposite  direction.  .  .  .  Such  things, 
though  they  will  never,  I  hope,  prevent  my  doing  my  duty,  though  they 
do  not,  indeed,  alarm  me,  yet  they  make  me  feel  that  it  will  be  a  good 
day  when  I  can  fairly  say  that  my  official  career  is  closed,  and  that  I  can 
return  to  my  country  with  a  fair  amount  of  character  and  reputation.  I 
trust  you  will  not  misunderstand  what  I  have  said.  I  should  not  have 
done  so  had  it  not  been  that  your  letter  gave  me  an  opening  for  express- 
ing my  feelings  on  my  present  position. 

One  more  short  and  kindly  letter  from  the  Queen  to  Sir  John 
Lawrence  I  may,  perhaps,  best  insert  here. 

Balmoral :  October  4,   1867. 

The  Queen  is  quite  shocked  to  feel  how  long  it  is  since  she  has  re- 
ceived Sir  John  Lawrence's  last  satisfactory  letter,  and  that  she  has  not 
yet  answered  him.  But  she  has  very  little  time  and  consequently  misses 
the  day  for  the  mail.  The  Queen  thanks  Sir  John  much  for  his  letter, 
and  for  the  very  interesting  Photographs  of  the  tomb  of  her  dear  friend 
Lady  Canning.  She  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Lady  Napier  here  the 
other  day  and  of  hearing  much  that  was  most  interesting  about  India 
from  her. 

The  Queen  trusts  that  the  misery  caused  by  the  terrible  famine  has 
passed  away,  and  that  her  Indian  subjects  are  in  a  state  of  prosperity. 
She  rejoices  to  hear  of  the  general  state  of  tranquillity  in  the  country. 

With  every  good  wish  for  the  happiness  of  her  Indian  Empire  and 
for  the  health  of  Sir  J.  and  Lady  Lawrence  the  Queen  concludes  her 
letter. 

The  season  at  Simla  had  been  this  year  a  very  sickly  one.  Chol- 
era had  been  raging  all  around,  and  no  precautions  seemed  able  to 
avert  or  limit  its  ravages.  On  November  i,  Sir  John  and  Lady 
Lawrence  left,  for  the  last  time,  together,  the  place  in  which  they 
had  spent  so  many  and  such  busy  months  ;  and,  after  a  halt  of  a 
few  days  at   Delhi,  that  they   might  visit  their  old  haunts  there, 


1867-68  THE  VICEROYALTY.  461 

made  their  way  to  Lucknow,  where  it  had  been  arranged  that  Sir 
John  should  hold  the  last  of  his  great  Durbars.  The  occasion  was 
one  of  extreme  interest  from  every  point  of  view.  The  long  stand- 
ing dispute  with  the  Talukdars  of  Oude,  which  I  shall  describe  in 
the  next  chapter,  had  been  brought  to  a  satisfactory  conclusion, 
and  all  was  now  peace  and  goodwill.  Sir  John  Strachey,  who,  with 
the  help  of  Mean  Sing,  one  of  the  chief  Talukdars,  had,  by  great 
exertions  and  still  greater  tact,  arranged  the  terms  of  the  compro- 
mise, was  then  Chief  Commissioner  of  Oude,  and  the  Viceroy  was  to 
be  his  guest.  Above  all,  there  was  the  deep  interest,  at  once  fam- 
ily and  national,  attaching  to  a  state  visit  paid  by  the  Viceroy  to 
the  shattered  building  which  had  gone  through  such,  agonizing  vi- 
cissitudes in  the  Mutiny,  and  in  the  immediate  precincts  of  which 
there  lay  the  most  heroic  of  its  defenders,  his  own  brother,  who  had 
*  tried  to  do,'  and  had  done  his  duty  to  the  last.  The  chief  exter- 
nal feature  of  the  Durbar  was  the  magnificent  procession  of  seven 
hundred  elephants,  which  accompanied  the  Viceroy  as  he  entered 
the  city. 

My  dear  husband  (says  Lady  Lawrence)  was  deeply  touched  at  visiting 
Lucknow,  and  as  the  procession  of  elephants  halted  in  front  of  the  Resi- 
dency, the  scene  was  most  striking,  bringing  into  strong  contrast  the 
past  and  the  present  ;  now  a  triumphal  entry  of  the  conquering  power  ; 
while  the  past  could  not  but  be  vividly  recalled  with  all  the  terrible  story 
of  the  Mutiny  and  siege.  There,  too,  my  husband  realised  all  that  his 
brother  must  have  gone  through,  and  the  sufferings  and  anguish  of  our 
countrymen  and  countrywomen.  On  looking  over  the  poor  defences 
that  existed  there,  we  were  filled  with  wonder  and  admiration  at  the  way 
in  which  the  garrison  had  held  out.  Altogether,  the  visit  was  a  very 
memorable  one,  and  in  many  ways,  it  tried  him  a  good  deal.  I  will  not 
dwell  on  the  important  Durbar  held  there  when  the  long-standing  Ta- 
lukdar  grievance  was  settled.  .  .  .  The  personal  matters  connected  with 
our  visit  are  to  me  much  more  interesting.  We  visited  his  brother's 
grave,  as  well  as  those  of  others  who  had  fallen  during  the  siege.  In 
writing  at  this  time,  my  heart  turns  to  another  scene,  and  contrasts  the 
last  hours  of  dear  Htnry,  in  all  the  tumult  of  war  and  agony,  with  the 
peaceful  passing  away  of  my  beloved  husband,  surrounded  by  those  who 
so  deeply  loved  him,  and  who,  while  thankful  that  his  entrance  into  life 
was  so  calm,  are  left  to  bear  the  burden  of  their  life  without  the  loving 
heart  and  guiding  hand  which  had  never  failed  them. 

Of  all  the  scenes  which  they  had  witnessed  in  Sir  John  Law- 
rence's eventful  life,  there  is  no  single  scene — so  one  and  another 
of  his  most  faithful  friends  who  accompanied  him  have  assured  me 
— which  has  stamped  itself  in  such  imperishable  colours  on  their 


462  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

recollections,  as  that  in  front  of  the  Residency  at  Lucknow.  There, 
by  the  corner  of  the  building,  stood  Sir  John  Lawrence,  alone,  in 
his  simple  black  coat  and  sun  helmet,  his  hands  crossed  in  front  of 
him,  and  his  Staff  at  some  little  distance  off,  but  not  so  far  as  that 
they  could  not  watch  the  shadows  which  came  and  went  over  his 
rugged  features,  as  he  stood  wrapped  in  thought.  There  was  the 
long  line  of  Talukdars,  in  all  their  bravery  of  gold  and  purple, 
mounted  on  their  magnificently  caparisoned  elephants  and  humbly 
saluting  the  Viceroy  as  they  filed  past,  and  saw  with  satisfaction  or 
the  reverse  their  own  handiwork  in  the  dents  and  chasms  made  by 
'millions  of  rifle  bullets  and  thousands  of  cannon  balls'  in  that  ter- 
ribly battered  building.  There,  in  front,  were  the  miserable  de- 
fences hastily  thrown  up  under  his  brother's  eye,  which  had  kept  a 
whole  army  and  a  whole  city,  for  so  many  months,  at  bay,  and 
which  had  now  been  partially  levelled  to  admit  of  the  nearer  ap- 
proach of  the  procession.  Close  behind  him  was  the  room  in  which 
the  '  cruel  bursting  shell '  had  done  its  ghastly  work  on  his  noble- 
hearted  brother ;  and  some  fifty  yards  away,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Residency,  was  his  simple  tomb.  When  the  sights  and  sounds 
of  the  great  pageant  of  submission  were  over,  the  veteran  Viceroy 
walked  around  to  the  sacred  spot,  still  followed,  at  a  distance,  by 
the  members  of  his  Staff,  and  stood  there  for  many  minutes  by  him- 
self, and  once  again  wrapped  in  thought.  That  day  he  must  have 
felt  was  a  day  of  final  and  bloodless  triumph,  a  triumph  won  as 
jnuch  by  his  brother  as  by  himself.  And  there  was  something  com- 
forting, stimulating,  ennobling  in  the  thought. 

Lady  Lawrence  had  not  been  well  for  some  months  past,  and  it 
had  been  settled,  partly  on  that  ground,  partly  on  other  general 
family  considerations,  that  she  should  go  home  early  in  1S68.  Her 
children  had,  during  the  last  year,  been  under  the  care  of  her  great 
friends,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kensington,  who  had  moved  with  their  own 
family  into  Southgate  House,  and  had  done  everything  that  the 
parents  themselves  could  have  done  for  the  happiness  and  well- 
being  of  their  charge.  Two  family  incidents,  such  as  in  the  chequer 
work  of  human  life,  with  its  alternations  of  light  and  shade,  often 
follow  close  upon  each  other,  marked  the  last  two  months  spent  by 
Lady  Lawrence  in  India.  First  came  the  news  of  the  death  of  her 
only  sister,  Mrs.  Kennedy,  who  had  long  been  the  centre  of  a  large 
and  loving  family  circle  in  Ireland,  a  family  circle  connected  by 
more  than  one  marriage,  and  in  more  than  one  generation,  with  the 
Lawrences.  Soon  afterwards  followed  the  marriage  of  Kate,  her 
eldest  daughter,  to  Colonel  Randall,  who,  it  will  be  remembered, 


1867-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  463 

had  been  the  friend  and  aide-de-camp  of  John  Nicholson  at  the 
Trimmu-Ghaut,  and  at  Nujuffghur  ;  and,  in  accordance  with  the 
spirit  of  Nicholson's  last  request,  had,  some  years  since,  been  ap- 
pointed Sir  John  Lawrence's  aide-de-camp,  and  was  now  to  become 
his  son-in-law.  It  was  the  first  break  of  the  kind  in  the  Lawrence 
family.  But,  in  this  case,  the  marriage  enabled  the  daughter  to  re- 
main behind  with  her  father,  and  fill,  as  far  as  might  be,  her  mother's 
place  in  the  Viceregal  hospitalities. 

The  marriage  took  place  on  January  28,  1868  ;  and  on  February 
25,  Lady  Lawrence,  accompanied  by  her  second  and  her  youngest 
daughters,  left  Calcutta  for  England.  During  the  first  part  of  her 
voyage  she  found  a  most  genial  companion  in  Norman  Macleod, 
whose  almost  royal  progress  through  India,  as  a  delegate  from  the 
Church  of  Scotland  on  the  subject  of  Christian  missions,  had  just 
been  brought  to  a  conclusion  by  a  public  dinner  at  Calcutta  at  which 
Sir  John  Lawrence  had  himself  presided.  He  thankfully  accepted 
the  place  which  the  Viceroy  offered  him  in  the  '  Feroze,'  the  Vice- 
regal steamer,  which  had  taken  so  many  Governors- General  to  and 
from  India.  And  in  his  biography  I  find  the  following  extract  from 
a  letter  to  his  wife  : — 

The  Governor-General  came  down  to  the  '  Feroze  '  in  his  tug,  and 
talked  with  me,  for  about  two  hours,  in  the  frankest  manner,  giving  me 
an  immense  number  of  most  interesting  facts  about  his  life  and  govern- 
ment in  the  Punjab,  the  Mutiny,  Delhi,  &c.  I  was  greatly  touched  by 
his  goodness ;  and  I  loved  him  the  more  when  I  saw  him  weeping  as  he 
parted,  for  one  year  only,  with  his  wife  and  daughters. 

The  changes  which  took  place  during  this  last  year  of  Sir  John 
Lawrence's  Viceroyalty  amongst  the  chief  officers  of  government 
were,  many  of  them,  highly  favourable  to  the  despatch  of  business. 
Massey  returned  to  England,  and  his  place  as  Finance  Minister  was 
taken  by  Richard  Temple  ;  while  John  Strachey  was  called  from 
Oude  and  became  a  Member  of  Council.  '  1  anticipate,'  said  Sir 
John  Lawrence,  '  a  great  accession  of  strength  in  every  way  from 
these  two  men.'  W.  Seton-Karr  succeeded  Temple  as  Foreign 
Secretary,  a  post  which  he  was  to  hold  with  great  credit,  well  into 
the  reign  of  Sir  John's  successor.  Muir  became  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor of  the  North-West  Provinces,  while  Norman  filled  the  place 
of  Durand,  who  went  home  on  furlough.  Sir  Henry  Durand  was  a 
man  of  much  ability  and  high  character,  but  of  a  highly  impractica- 
ble temper  in  public  matters,  and  as  Military  Member  of  Council, 
he  had  acted  as  though  he  were  inclined,  like  the  famous  Praetorian 
I)refect  of  Tacitus,  '  consilii  quamvis  egrcgii  quod  no7i  ipse  afferret 


464  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

ini)/i!ciis,'  to  oppose  every  measure  which  did  not  originate  with 
himself,  or,  at  all  events,  every  measure  which  was  especially  near 
to  the  heart  of  the  Governor-General.  Thus,  his  departure,  as  the 
letters  before  me  show,  was  an  infinite  relief  to  Sir  John  Lawrence. 
Altogether  it  was  a  year  of  vigorous  performance,  of  rapid  prog- 
ress, which  were  made  possible  only  by  the  long  and  anxious  efforts 
of  the  years  which  had  preceded  it.  The  irrigation  works  which 
Sir  John  Lawrence  had,  after  repeated  apphcations,  obtained  leave 
from  home  to  construct,  and  for  which,  during  the  two  past  years, 
surveys  had  been  making  and  estimates  forming,  were  now  begun 
everywhere  in  good  earnest.  Railways  were  pushed  on  with  great 
rapidity.  The  Sanitary  Commissioners,  Sir  John's  own  creation, 
were  hard  at  work  in  each  province  of  the  empire.  The  new  bar- 
racks and  forts  were  rising  fast,  and  were  being  paid  for,  thanks  to 
his  prudence,  not  out  of  capital,  but  out  of  revenue.  There  had 
been  a  deficit  in  more  than  one  year  of  his  Viceroyalty  ;  owing, 
partly,  to  the  imperfect  control  he  possessed  over  the  Finance  Min- 
isters who  were  sent  from  England,  partly,  to  the  Orissa  famine, 
partly,  to  the  Bombay  expenditure,  and,  partly,  to  that  most  uncer- 
tain as  well  as  unsatisfactory  factor  in  Indian  Finance,  the  Opium 
Revenue.  But  such  had  been  the  general  and  unexampled  pros- 
perity of  the  country,  that,  in  spite  of  the  Mutiny,  in  spite  of  two 
famines,  in  spite  also  of  the  expense  attending  the  reorganisation  of 
the  whole  Government,  the  revenue  had  increased  from  twenty- 
seven  millions,  which  had  been  the  total  income  of  the  year  1855, 
to  forty-nine  millions  in  1866.  In  other  words,  it  had  nearly  doubled 
itself  in  eleven  years  !  The  Legislative  Department  shared  in  the 
general  activity,  and  the  Oude  and  Punjab  Tenancy  Bills,  of  which 
I  shall  have  to  say  much  in  the  next  chapter,  passed  into  laws. 
Revised  furlough  rules,  which  conferred  great  benefits  on  the  cov- 
enanted service  of  India,  were  sent  home  for  approval,  and  efforts 
were  made  to  extend  vernacular  education.  A  small  war,  called 
'  the  Black  Mountain  Campaign,'  against  some  tribes  on  the  extreme 
North-West  frontier,  was  begun,  carried  through,  and  finished,  in 
the  space  of  a  couple  of  months  ;  as  soon,  that  is,  as  its  object  was 
accomplished,  without  the  expenditure  of  a  drop  of  unnecessary 
blood  in  quest  of  military  decorations  or  military  glory.  Altogether, 
the  wheels  of  Government  moved  more  rapidly  and  more  smoothly 
in  this  than  they  had  done  in  any  previous  year  of  Sir  John  Law- 
rence's Viceroyalty  ;  and  when  Lord  Mayo  arrived  early  in  1869, 
he  succeeded  to  an  administration  which  had  few  special  anxieties, 
had  no  arrears,  and  was  well  adjusted  in  all  its  constituent  parts. 


IS67-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  465 

I  conclude  this  chapter  with  extracts  from  three  or  four  letter.^ 
which  were  written  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  during  the  last  year  of 
his  ofifice,  and  with  an  important  paper  which  I  have  received  from 
Sir  John  Strachey,  since  I  finished  my  own  account,  and  in  which 
he  sums  up  his  impressions  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  Viceroyalty  : — 

March  21,  186S. 
...  I  assure  you  most  solemnly,  that  the  question  of  increased  ex- 
penditure in  India,  a  question  which  involves  additional  taxation,  is  a 
vital  one  for  our  rule.  However  light  the  burden  may  appear  which 
falls  on  the  poorer  classes,  it  is  quite  as  much  as,  perhaps  more,  than 
they  ought  to  bear  ;  and  the  richer  classes,  including  our  own  country- 
men, simply  will  not  pay  a  farthing  which  they  can  avoid.  The  hatred 
which  is  evinced  towards  the  License  Tax  or  the  Income  Tax  is  really  a 
strong  feeling  against  any  taxation  which  can  affect  them.  There  is  no 
patriotism,  no  sympathy  among  them  which  can  counterbalance  this 
antipathy.  Practically,  they  claim  to  live  and  flourish  without  contribut- 
ing to  the  expenses  of  the  state.  On  this  account,  I  feel  so  desirous  of 
avoiding  any  large  outlay  which  can  be  avoided. 

The  following  letter  refers  to  his  difficulties  with  Durand  ;  and 
that  his  remarks  are  well  within  the  truth  I  have  assured  myself  by 
conversations  with  other  members  of  the  Council,  or  high  officials 
who  were  best  acquainted  with  all  the  circumstances. 

March  13,  1868. 
...  I  may  say,  with  perfect  truth,  that  I  was  instrumental  in  Sir 
Henry  Durand  getting  his  seat  in  Council.  .  .  .  Nevertheless,  ever  since 
he  entered  it,  I  have  had  difficulties  in  managing  matters  with  him.  He 
is  so  unbending,  so  acrimonious,  that  it  is  very  hard  to  work  with  him. 
He  took  a  disagreeable  line  towards  me  in  the  Oude  tenure  question, 
and,  in  the  debate  at  Simla,  almost  accused  me  of  dealing  unfairly. 
Since  then,  I  have  had  to  take  up  a  matter  connected  with  the  personal 
expenditure  of  members  of  Council,  which  Jiad  created  some  scandal  in 
the  newspapers,  and  regarding  which,  exaggerated  statements  were 
circulated.  I  took  it  up,  I  may  say,  to  a  great  extent  in  the  interest  of 
the  Councillors.  Not  a  word  was  said  which  personally  reflected  on 
Durand,  but  he  took  up  what  I  wrote  in  such  a  way,  that,  had  he  not 
subsequently  withdrawn  his  Minute,  either  he  or  I  must  have  left  the 
Council.  Since  then,  we  are  more  in  opposition  than  ever.  I  have 
known  Sir  H.  Durand  for  many  years,  and  have  a  sincere  respect  for  his 
ability  and  character.  But  unless  he  can  be  induced  to  place  some  re- 
straint on  his  bearing  and  writing,  the  public  interest  must  suffer.  I 
would  be  very  sorry  indeed  to  do  him  any  real  harm.  All  I  ask  is  that 
you  will  take  some  opportunity,  such  as  the  present  one,  in  answering 
the  official  reference,  to  give  him  a  hint  of  his  duty.  If  it  is  necessary 
VOL.  II. — 30 


466  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENXE.  1867-68 

in  England,  indeed,  I  may  say  in  all  countries  of  the  civilised  world,  for 
the  members  of  the  Government  to  act  with  their  Government,  how 
much  more  important  is  this  in  a  state  of  things  like  that  of  our  rule  in 
India  ? 

Here  is  an  important  suggestion  which  it  would  be  well  if  we  had 

always  followed. 

April  4. 

...  I  am  quite  sure  that  nothing  could  more  conduce  to  the  popu- 
larity of  our  rule  in  India  than  our  respecting  the  ancient  tenures  of  the 
country,  and  not  allowing  them  to  be  sold  for  arrears  of  revenue  except 
in  very  rare  cases.  In  the  North-West  Provinces  the  system  of  selling 
for  such  arrears,  and,  still  oftener,  for  decrees  of  the  Civil  Court,  was  the 
one  great  complaint  which  was  put  forward  in  the  Mutiny.  In  the  Pun- 
jab, we  scarcely  ever  allowed  such  sales,  and  the  same  rule  is  recognised 
in  the  Central  Provinces  and  in  Oude,  to  a  great  extent. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  had,  as  his  whole  life  proves,  great  sym- 
pathy with  the  spirit  of  enterprise  and  energy  possessed  by  our 
countrymen.  But  the  following  letter  shows  the  line  he  always 
adopted,  as  a  ruler,  towards  projects  which  might  involve  the  trav- 
eller himself  in  imminent  danger,  and  his  country  in  the  risk,  the 
limitless  expense  and  the  injustice  of  war.  The  tragical  end  of 
Hayward,  while  it,  by  no  means,  condemns  such  expeditions  in 
themselves,  shows  that  Sir  John  Lawrence,  in  his  responsible  posi- 
tion, was  right  in  not  encouraging  them. 

July  7. 

I  am  strongly  of  opinion  that  it  will  be  a  great  mistake  to  allow  Mr. 
Hayward,  or  any  other  European,  to  travel  from  our  borders  into  Cen- 
tral Asia.  The  route  through  Swat  and  the  Chitral  valley  is,  I  beheve, 
the  most  dangerous  of  all  the  routes.  I  do  not  think  that  any  European, 
certainly  any  Englishman,  could  travel  in  such  a  disguise  as  not  to  be 
found  out.  The  news  of  his  intention  would  precede  him  from  Pesha- 
wur,  to  a  certainty.  Should  anything  happen  to  him  it  would  certainly 
prove  embarrassing  to  us,  whatever  he  or  Sir  Henry  Rawhnson  may 
say  to  the  contrary.  If  w^e  allow  Mr.  Hayward  to  try  his  chance,  on 
what  principle  can  we  restrain  our  own  officers  from  undertaking  similar 
enterprises  ?  As  it  is,  we  have  the  greatest  difficulties  in  this  way. 
Nothing  short  of  a  positive  command  on  your  part  will  induce  me  to 
relax  the  existing  restrictions.  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  has  not,  I  suspect, 
any  personal  knowledge  of  the  tribes  on  our  western  border,  and  of 
their  extraordinary  animosity  to  Europeans.  .  .  .  We  have  written  to 
you  fully  on  the  Muscat  and  Zanzibar  question.  We  all  think  it  would 
be  a  great  mistake  making  Zanzibar  over  to  the  Foreign  Office  {i.e.,  the 
English  Foreign  Office).  It  would  be  derogatory  to  our  prestige  if  we 
"allowed  the  chief  to  give  up  paying  his  tribute  to  Muscat,  and  the  loss 


1867-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  4^7 

would  sensibly  weaken  Muscat.  The  present  Murdan  of  Muscat  must 
be  a  miserable  fellow.  But,  up  to  a  certain  point  it  is  our  interest  to 
support  him.  That  interest  consists  in  maintaining  peace  in  those  seas, 
and  preventing  piracy  again  making  head,  and  thus  undoing  the  work 
of  the  last  fifty  years.  Our  honour,  our  duty  demand  this  of  us.  But 
for  our  efforts,  the  trade  of  India  in  those  parts  would  soon  be  destroyed. 
It  was  a  great  mistake  breaking  up  the  Indian  navy.'  The  proper 
course  was  to  have  simply  reduced  its  overgrown  proportions.  Now, 
all  that  seems  to  be  required  is  to  resuscitate  it  to  a  moderate  extent. 
...  I  feel  very  sorry  for  the  Irish  Church,  whose  doom,  I  presume,  is 
certain.  I  admit  its  anomalies  and  its  shortcomings,  and  would  gladly 
see  a  reform.  But  its  destruction  appears  to  me  likely  to  prove  a  misfor- 
tune. I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  Ireland  for  a  man  whose  time  has 
been  so  much  spent  in  India  ;  and  it  has  always  struck  me  that  the 
main  cause  of  the  discontent  arises  from  agrarian  circumstances.  No 
people  can  be  contented  and  loyal  who  have  not  the  means  of  decent 
subsistence.  Ireland,  on  a  small  scale,  is  a  type  of  India.  Agriculture 
is  the  chief  employment  of  the  people,  and  hence  the  poverty  of  the 
masses. 

The  following  letter  indicates  by  its  subject  matter  that  the  be- 
ginning of  the  end  had  come. 

July  27. 

I  will  of  course  keep  to  myself  the  proposed  appointment  of  Lord 
Mayo  as  new  Governor-General,  as  long  as  may  be  necessary.  I  will 
do  all  in  my  power  to  smooth  his  path  ;  and,  when  we  meet,  I  will  read- 
ily tell  him  my  opinion  of  the  leading  men  in  India  with  whom  he  is 
likely  to  come  in  contact.  As  to  the  particular  subjects  to  which  Lord 
Mayo's  attention  should  at  once  be  directed,  I  suggest  that  he  should 
read  the  correspondence  which  may  be  available  at  home  on  the  fol- 
lowing matters  : — (i)  The  relations  of  the  Government  of  India  with  the 
different  local  governments.  (2)  The  extension  and  general  management 
of  the  railway  system.  (3)  The  Central  Asian  question.  (4)  The  rela- 
tions between  the  indigo  planters  and  the  cultivators  in  Bengal  and 
Behar.  (5)  The  relations  between  the  tea  planters  and  the  coolies  in 
Assam  and  Cachar,  and  all  points  connected  therewith.  (6)  The  points 
connected  with  the  present  organisation  of  the  native  troops  in  India  ; 
more  particularly  as  regards  the  number  of  English  officers  for  each 
regiment.  (7)  The  question  of  a  local  marine  for  the  service  of  the  Per- 
sian Gulf  and  Arabian  Sea.  (8)  The  relations  between  the  British  Gov- 
ernment and  Persia,  Muscat  and  Zanzibar,  &c.,  as  they  bear  on  Indian 
interests.  (9)  The  proposed  decentralisation  of  Indian  finance.  These 
are  the  different  subjects  of  pressing  importance  which  strike  me  as 
deserving  of  Lord  Mayo's  immediate  consideration',  and,  no  doubt,  it 
will  be  very  useful  that  he  should  talk  them  over  with  yourself. 

^   This  was  done  by  Lord  Canning  after  the  Mutiny,  aided  by  Laiiig. 


468  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

A  pretty  good  programme  of  work  was  thus  marked  out  for  the 
short  interval  between  the  nomination  of  Lord  Mayo  and  his  arrival 
in  India.  The  next  letter  shows  that  the  long  civil  wars  in  Afghan- 
istan were  at  length  nearing  their  end,  and  that  the  goodwill  which 
Sir  John  Lawrence  had  hitherto  shown,  by  holding  himself  aloof 
from  the  struggle,  might  now,  without  danger  and  without  incon- 
sistency be  evinced  in  other  ways. 

Simla:  October  10,  1868. 

Dear  Sir  Stafford, — I  have  written,  or  rather  have  directed  the  Na- 
tive Agent  at  Cabul  to  be  informed  that  if  the  Ameer,  Shere  Ali,  would 
desire  to  meet  me  at  Rawul  Pindi  or  even  at  Peshawur,  I  will  go  up 
and  see  him.  As  we  have  decided  to  give  him  some  help  in  money 
and  in  arms,  this  will  content  him  ;  though,  no  doubt,  he  will  ask  for  _ 
an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance.  My  idea  is  that  whatever  we  give 
should  be  in  the  nature  of  a  grant /rt?;;;  year  to  year  ;  strictly  de- 
pendent on  our  general  satisfaction  with  the  good  conduct  of  the  Ameer 
and  his  adherence  to  the  engagements  which  he  enters  into  with  us.  I 
say  '  strictly,'  because  the  tendency  of  all  Afghans  is  to  take  all  they 
can  get,  and  to  do  as  little  as  possible  in  return.  Of  course,  I  would 
neither  ask  nor  expect  anything  unreasonable.  Indeed,  all  we  ought 
to  require  is  that  he  would  keep  his  people,  where  his  territory  abuts 
on  or  approaches  ours,  in  good  order,  and  maintain  true  relations  of 
amity  with  us.  This  important  matter,  and  my  wish  to  be  near  the 
Commander-in-Chief  and  not  far  from  the  Punjab,  while  the  present 
frontier  troubles  in  Huzara  may  last,  will  prevent  my  going  to  Calcutta 
as  soon  as  I  should  otherwise  have  done. 

The  '  Black  Mountain '  campaign,  which,  like  the  wretched  Bhotan 
war,  was  brought  to  a  conclusion  by  Sir  John  Lawrence's  orders  as 
soon  as  ever  its  object  was  answered,  gave  rise  to  the  usual  com- 
plaint of  the  loss  of  military  'prestige.' 

Simla  :  October  24,  1868. 

Judging  from  the  newspapers,  our  officers  are  vexed  at  what  they  con- 
sider the  inglorious  results  of  the  campaign  on  the  Black  Mountain.  The 
force  employed  was  perhaps  larger  than  necessary,  and  deterred  the 
tribes  from  resistance.  The  General  was  also  cautious.  But  I  did  not 
think  it  prudent  or  right  to  refuse  what  he  asked  for  and  what  the 
Commander-in-Chief  desired  he  should  have.  Nor  was  it  desirable  that 
we  should  run  the  risk  of  a  second  Umbeyla  campaign.  Officers  are 
a  little  unreasonable.  They  desire  to  have  fighting,  without  considering 
the  cost  of  life  which  occurs  on  such  occasions,  particularly  in  moun- 
tain warfare.  I  have  no  doubt,  however,  that  the  expedition  will  do 
much  good,  and  probably  keep  the  tribes  of  the  Black  Mountain  and 
its  vicinity  quiet  for  some  years. 

In  December  the  Conservative  Ministry  resigned,  and  Sir  Staf- 


1867-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  469 

ford  Northcote  was  succeeded  by  the  Duke  of  Argyll.  Sir  John 
Lawrence  was  no  party  man.  His  sympathies  were  always  on  the 
side  of  progress.  But  he  had  been  treated  with  equal  confidence 
by  each  successive  Secretary  of  State,  whether  Conservative  or  Lib- 
eral, and  in  those  days  India  was  happily  almost  outside  the  range 

of  English  party  conflicts. 

Calcutta:  December  15. 

I  write  now  (says  Sir  John  Lawrence  to  Sir  Stafford  Northcote)  to 
thank  you  for  the  courtesy  and  consideration  which  I  have  received 
at  your  hands,  and  to  express  a  hope  that,  on  my  return  to  England, 
we  may  become  personally  acquainted  with  each  other. 

To  the  new  Secretary  of  State  he  writes  as  follows  : — 

Calcutta:  December  28,  1868. 
My  dear  Duke  of  Argyll, — I  must  thank  you  for  your  friendly  tele- 
gram.    It  is  a  source  of  regret  to  me  that  I  leave  India  so.  soon  after 
you  come  into  power.     But  I  am  very  far  from  being  well,  and  it  is 
high  time  that  I  gave  up  work.     I  suffer  a  good  deal  from  my  head. 

I  conclude  this  chapter  with  a  weighty  and  admirable  letter  of 
Sir  John  Strachey.  Few  people  living  are  more  competent  to  speak 
with  authority  upon  the  subject  of  Sir  John  Lawrence's  Viceroyalty 
than  he. 

Villa  Spinola,  Florence  :  January  16,  18S2. 

...  In  accordance  with  your  wish,  I  send  you  some  of  my  recollec- 
tions of  Lord  Lawrence  and  his  work.  Unfortunately  I  have  access  here 
to  no  books  or  papers,  and  must  trust  entirely  to  my  memory  ;  and  I  am 
afraid  that  my  letter  cannot,  for  this  reason,  contain  much  that  will  be  of 
use  to  you. 

I  never  saw  Lord  Lawrence  before  he  became  Viceroy,  the  earlier  part 
of  my  own  service  having  been  passed  in  the  North-Western  Provinces, 
which  he  had  left  for  the  Punjab.  Consequendy  I  can  contribute  nothing 
from  personal  knowledge  to  the  history  of  the  most  important  portion  of 
his  life,  and  to  that  with  which  your  work  will  necessarily  be  mainly  con- 
cerned. I  knew  him  very  intimately  when  he  was  Viceroy,  but  his  Vice- 
royalty  was  not  marked  by  stirring  political  events,  nor  was  any  great 
opportunity  offered  for  the  display  of  some  of  the  qualities  by  which  he  was 
especially  distinguished.  Many  questions  of  high  importance  arose,  but 
they  were,  for  the  most  part,  questions  of  internal  administration,  the  his- 
tory of  which  in  detail  would  not  have  much  interest  for  English  readers. 

It  would,  nevertheless,  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  Vice- 
royalty  of  Lord  Lawrence  was  unimportant  because  it  was  uneventful. 
He  assumed  the  government  of  India  at  an  especially  interesting  and 
difficult  time.  The  mutinies  of  1857  had  disturbed  the  whole  adminis- 
trative system  to  its  foundations,  and  the  shock  caused  by  this  tremen- 
dous convulsion  had  not  fully  subsided.     No  accurate  judgment  can  be 


470  LIFE    OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

formed  in  regard  to  the  main  characteristics  of  Lord  Lawrence's  admin- 
istration, without  a  distinct  conception  of  the  state  of  things  w^hich  he 
found  when  he  became  Viceroy.  In  the  book  which  my  brother, 
General  Strachey,  has  lately  published,  I  have  endeavoured  to  give  a 
sketch  of  the  condition  of  India  as  it  was  twenty  years  ago,  and  of  the 
immense  changes  which  have  subsequently  taken  place,  and  you  will 
perhaps  allow  me  to  make  from  it  the  following  quotation,  because  I 
cannot  better  express  facts  which  seem  to  me  essential  to  a  right  under- 
standing of  the  real  character  of  Lord  Lawrence's  administration. 

'  Even  before  the  mutinies  of  1857  the    process  of  change  had  made 
great  progress.     After  that  revolution,  which,  for  a  time,  nearly  swept 
away  our  government  through  a  large  part  of  India,  the  change  went  on 
with  enormously  accelerated   speed.      Thousands  of  Englishmen,    not 
only  soldiers,  but  Englishmen  of  almost  every  class,  poured  into  India. 
Ten  thousand  things  were  demanded  which  India  had  not  got,  but  which, 
it  was  felt,  must  be  provided.     The  country  must  be  covered  with   rail- 
ways and  telegraphs,  roads    and   bridges.     Irrigation  canals  must  be 
made  to  preserve  the  people  from   starvation.     Barracks  must  be  built 
for  a  great  European  army,    and   every  sort  of  sanitary  arrangement 
which  could  benefit  the  troops  must  be  carried  out  ;  for  we  did  not  choose 
to  let  soldiers  go  on  dying  like  sheep  in   the  old  fashion.     In  fact,  the 
whole  paraphernalia  of  a  great  civilised  administration,  according  to  the 
modern  ideas  of  what  that  means,  had  to  be  provided.     This  was  true 
not  only  in   regard  to  matters  of  imperial  concern.     Demands  for  im- 
provement, similiar  to  those  which  fell  upon  the  Central  Government, 
cropped  up  in  every  city  and  in  every  district  of  the  country.    Compare,  for 
instance,  what  Calcutta  was  twenty  years  ago  and  what  it  is  now.     This 
cily,  the  capital  of  British  India,  supplies  an  excellent  type  of  what  has 
been  everywhere  going  on.     The  filtli  of  the  city  used  to  rot  away  in  the 
midst  of  the  population  in  horrible  pestilential  ditches,  or  was  thrown  into 
the  Hooghly,  there  to  float  backwards  and  forwards  with  every  change  of 
tide.    To  nine-tenths  of  the  inhabitants  clean  water  was  unknown.     They 
drank  either  the  filthy  water  of  the  river  polluted  with  every  conceivable 
abomination,  or  the  still   filthier  contents  of  the  shallow  tanks.     The 
river,  which  was  the  main  source  of  supply  to  thousands  of  people,  was 
not  only  the  receptacle  for  ordinary  filth,  it  was  the  great  graveyard  of 
the  city.     I  forget  how  many  thousand  corpses  were  thrown  into  it  every 
year.     I  forget  how  many  hundred  corpses  were  thrown  into  it  from  the 
Government  hospitals  and  jails  ;  for  these  practices  were  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  poor  and  ignorant  ;  they  were  followed  or  allowed,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  by  the  officers  of  the  Government  and  of  the  Munici- 
pality.    I  remember  the  sights  which  were  to  be  seen  in  Calcutta  in 
those  days,  in  the  hospitals,  and  jails,  and  markets,  and  slaughter-houses, 
and   public  streets.     The  place  was  declared,    in  language  which  was 
not,  and  could  not  be  stronger  than  the  truth  required,  to  be  hardly  fit 
for  civilised   men  to  live  in.     There  are  now  few  cities  in   Europe  with 
which  the  better  quarters  of  Calcutta  need  fear  comparison,  and  there  is 


1867-68  THE  VICEROY ALTY.  47 1 

hardly  a  city  in  the  world  which  has  made  more  extraordinary  progress. 
.  .  .  About  the  same  time,  the  Royal  Commission  for  inquiring  into  the 
sanitary  state  of  the  army  in  India  declared  that  thousands  of  the  lives  of 
our  soldiers  had  been,  and  were  still  being  sacriticed,  in  consequence  of 
bad  and  insufficient  barrack  accommodation,  and  neglect  of  every  sani- 
tary precaution.  So,  again,  the  Government  was  told,  and  in  many 
parts  of  India  it  was  certainly  true,  that  in  consequence  of  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  jail  accommodation,  the  prisoners  were  dying  at  a  rate  frightful 
to  think  of,  and  that  the  necessary  proceedings  of  the  Courts  of  Justice 
involved  consequences  repugnant  to  humanity.  Thus  arose  demands 
for  the  requirements  of  civilised  life  and  of  modern  administration,  which 
had  to  be  provided,  and,  to  a  great  extent,  for  the  first  time,  within  the 
space  of  a  few  years.  This  was  true  not  only  of  material  appliances,  of 
toads  and  railways,  and  canals,  and  barracks,  and  the  city  improvements, 
and  so  forth  ;  for  the  demand  for  improved  administration  became  so 
strong  that  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  whole  of  the  public  services 
have  been  reorganised.  Thus,  for  example,  the  Police,  which  was  in  a 
shameful  condition  throughout  India,  has  been  placed  on  a  completely 
new  footing.  The  changes  in  the  judicial  service  and  in  the  laws  which 
it  administers,  have  been  as  great.  Lord  Lawrence,  when  he  was 
Viceroy,  declared  that  the  inadequacy  of  the  pay  given  to  native  judges 
and  to  the  chief  ministerial  officers  of  the  Courts  was  a  public  scandal  ; 
many  of  these  receiving  salaries  less  than  the  wages  earned  in  most 
parts  of  India  by  the  better  class  of  bricklayers  and  carpenters.  No 
honest  or  satisfactory  administration  of  justice  was,  under  such  condi- 
tions, possible. 

'  The  demands  for  every  sort  of  public  improvement,  moral  and  mate- 
rial, which  thus  sprang  up,  could  no-t  be  resisted.  Whatever  might  be 
the  cost,  remedies  had  to  be  provided  in  the  most  complete  way,  and  in 
the  shortest  time  possible.  There  were,  doubtless,  those  who  thought 
and  said  that  as  these  demands  involved  the  expenditure  of  millions, 
compliance  with  them  was  impracticable  or  ruinous.  Happily,  the 
Government  of  India  decided  otherwise.  It  might,  perhaps,  have  been 
better,  in  regard  to  some  of  the  reforms  which  have  been  carried  out,, 
if  the  work  of  improvement  had  been  more  gradual.  But  the  fault  has 
been  on  the  right  side.  A  greater  or  more  admirable  work  was  never 
conceived  in  any  country  than  that  which  has  been  undertaken,  and,  in 
a  great  degree,  accomplished,  by  Englishmen  in  India  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  and  which  is  still  going  on.  .  .  .  The  magnitude  of 
the  work  done  is  extraordinary.  The  England  of  Queen  Anne  was 
hardly  more  different  from  the  England  of  to-day  than  the  India  of  Lord 
EUenborough  from  the  India  of  Lord  Ripon.  The  country  has  been 
covered  with  roads  ;  her  almost  impassable  rivers  have  been  bridged  ; 
9,000  miles  of  railway  and  20,000  miles  of  telegraph  lines  have  been  con- 
structed ;  eight  million  acres  of  land  have  been  irrigated,  and  we  have 
spent  on  these  works,  in  little  more  than  twenty  years,  some  150,000,000/. 
Our  soldiLM-s'  barracks   are    now,  beyontl  comparison,  the  finest  in   the 


472  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

world.  Quarters  which,  twenty  years  ago,  had  a  reputation  little  bet- 
ter than  that  of  pest-houses,  are  now  among  the  healthiest  in  the 
British  Empire,  and  the  rate  of  mortality  among  the  troops  is  not  half 
what  it  was.  The  improvement  in  the  jails  and  in  the  health  of  the 
prisoners  has  been  hardly  less  remarkable.  The  cities  and  towns  are 
totally  different  places  from  what  they  were.  Simultaneously  with  the 
progress  of  all  these,  and  a  thousand  other  material  improvements,  with 
the  increase  of  trade,  the  creation  of  new  industries,  and  a  vast  develop- 
ment of  wealth,  there  has  gone  on  an  equally  remarkable  change  in 
every  branch  of  the  public  administration.  The  laws  have  been  codified 
and  improved  and  simplified,  until  they  have  become  the  admiration  ol 
the  world.  The  courts  of  justice  and  the  police  have  been  revolution- 
ised ;  and,  however  far  they  may  be  from  perfection,  India  has  obtained, 
to  a  degree  unheard  of  and  unthought  of  before,  protection  for  life  and 
property,  and  an  honest  administration  of  justice.  All  over  India,  we 
have  been  building  schools  and  hospitals  and  dispensaries.  The  natives 
of  India  have  been  admitted  to  a  far  larger  share  in  the  government  of 
their  own  country.  Municipal  institutions,  the  first  practical  step  in 
political  education,  have  been  established  in  all  considerable  towns  in 
British  India,  and  more  than  twelve  millions  of  people  live  within  their 
limits.  It  is  needless  to  continue  this  catalogue  of  the  changes  that  have 
taken  place,  but  it  is  not  the  least  remarkable  part  of  the  story  that  the 
accomplishment  of  all  this  work  and  the  expenditure  of  all  this  money, 
which  have  increased,  to  an  extent  absolutely  incalculable,  the  wealth 
and  comfort  of  the  people  of  India,  have  added  nothing  to  the  actual 
burden  of  their  taxation.' 

In  the  work  from  which  this  quotation  has  been  taken  there  were 
special  reasons  for  making  no  attempt  to  apportion  to  individuals  the 
honour  due  for  the  great  results  that  have  been  described.  But  the 
share  that  belongs  to  Lord  Lawrence  is  a  very  large  one.  After  the 
mutinies  had  been  suppressed.  Lord  Canning  had  not  been  able  to  ac- 
complish much  in  the  work  of  reform,  nor  was  much  done  during  the 
short  Viceroyalty  of  Lord  Elgin.  When  Lord  Lawrence  became  Viceroy 
it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  whole  of  the  public  services,  through- 
out a  great  part  of  India,  required  to  be  more  or  less  re-organised  or 
improved.  He  found  the  administration  in  a  somewhat  slipshod  condi- 
tion. Ample  materials  had  been  collected  for  the  decision  of  many 
important  questions,  but  there  was  hardly  one  of  them  which  had  not 
been  postponed  or  shelved,  or  which  was  not  waiting  for  a  strong  man 
to  take  it  up.  It  was  fortunate  for  India  that,  at  this  particular  time,  it 
obtained  for  its  Viceroy  a  man  who  was  not  only  strong,  but  who  pos- 
sessed the  great  advantage  of  personal  knowledge  of  the  country  and  its 
requirements,  who  understood  all  the  details  of  the  administration,  and 
saw  the  defects  that  had  to  be  remedied.  Lord  Lawrence  gave  the 
impulse  that  was  everywhere  required — an<l  this  is,  in  my  opinion,  the 
most  salient  fact  connected  with  his  Viceroyalty — he  stirred  up  every 
department  of  the  State,  and  insisted  on  it  putting  itself  in  order  ;  he 


1867-68  THE   VICEROYALTY.  473 

everywhere  set  the  machinery  in  motion  ;  he  demanded  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  slatternly  ways  which  had  grown  up  ;  and  he  gave  the  impe- 
tus which  the  great  reforms  which  were  already  in  the  air  required,  to 
make  them  realities. 

It  was  a  convincing  proof  of  the  excellence  of  his  own  past  administra- 
tion that  it  was  precisely  in  the  province  which  as  Chief  Commissioner 
and  Lieutenant-Governor  he  had  himself  long  ruled  that  the  call  for  such 
reforms  was  heard  the  least.  The  Punjab  was,  constantly  and  deservedly, 
held  up  as  a  model  to  be  followed  in  the  older  provinces  ;  and  although, 
as  Lord  Lawrence  would  himself  have  been  the  first  to  declare,  much  that 
was  excellent  in  its  system  would  have  been  unsuitable  to  parts  of  the 
country  in  which  the  social  and  political  conditions  were  different,  it  was 
impossible  to  deny  that  among  all  the  provinces  of  India  there  was  none 
in  which  the  public  administration  had  been  on  the  whole  so  efficient, 
and  in  which  so  little  radical  change  was  necessary. 

Among  the  reforms  to  which  reference  has  been  made  above,  there  is 
hardly  one  which  Lord  Lawrence  as  Viceroy  did  not  vigorously  prose- 
cute, and  some  of  the  most  important  of  them  might  have  been  indefi- 
nitely delayed,  or  not  carried  out  at  all,  if  his  action  had  been  wanting. 
This  is  especially  true  in  regard  to  the  construction  of  the  great  works 
of  material  improvement  which  have  produced  already  such  astonishing 
results,  and  the  effects  of  which  will  certainly  be,  in  the  future,  even 
more  important  and  beneficial  than  they  have  been  in  the  past.  The 
policy  of  constructing  railways  and  irrigation  canals  on  a  vast  scale 
through  the  direct  agency  of  the  State,  and  of  raising,  for  this  purpose, 
by  loan  whatever  sums  were  required,  and  which  could  not  be  supplied 
from  the  ordinary  revenues,  was  a  policy  which  was  first  set  in  motion 
by  Lord  Lawrence.  Although  he  did  not  himself  originate  it,  he  was 
the  first  Viceroy  to  accept  it.  It  first  took  a  practical  shape  under  his 
Government,  and  it  was  in  consequence  of  his  action  and  of  his  advice 
that  it  was  adopted  by  the  Secretary  of  State  and  carried  into  effect  by 
his  successors. 

I  must  refer  you  to  the  work  from  which  I  have  already  quoted  for  a 
detailed  history  of  this  policy  and  of  its  magnificent  success.  The  truth 
has  long-  been  obscured  by  the  ignorance  which  usually  attends  Indian 
questions  in  England.  But  the  facts  are  now  becoming  too  plain  for 
doubt  or  denial.  This  policy  has  already  given  to  the  people  of  India 
increased  wealth,  increased  national  prosperity,  and  increased  protect'on 
against  the  calamities  of  famine,  to  an  extent  hardly  possible  to  estimate 
or  exaggerate,  and  it  has  already  led  to  a  very  large  reduction  in  the 
public  burdens,  and  will,  if  wise  counsels  prevail,  give  in  the  future  the 
certain  assurance  of  financial  prosperity.  Although  when  Lord  Law- 
rence was  Viceroy  he  could  do  no  more  than  lay  the  foundations  of  this 
policy,  a  great  debt  of  gratitude  is  due  to  him  for  having  taken  that 
essential  step. 

This  letter  must  have  a  fragmentary  character,  and  I  cannot  attempt 
to  enumerate  in  their  proper  seciucnce  the  chief  measures  of  Lord  Law- 


474  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1867-68 

fence's  Government.  I  can  only  mention  some  of  them  as  they  occur 
to  me. 

He  was  the  first  Viceroy  to  take  up  seriously  the  great  question  of 
sanitary  improvement  in  India,  in  the  army,  in  the  jails,  and  in  the  towns. 
1\\  tlie  quotation  given  above,  I  have  described  the  disgraceful  state  of 
things  which  he  found  in  Calcutta  and  elsewhere.  My  recollection  of 
the  interest  which  he  took  in  these  matters  is  the  more  vivid,  because 
my  first  acquaintance  with  him  began  when  he  appointed  me,  in  the 
beginning  of  1864,  to  be  President  of  the  newly  established  Sanitary 
Commission.  I  well  remember  how,  at  my  first  interview  with  him,  he 
told  me  that  he  had  been  horrified,  as  he  well  might  be,  with  what  he 
had  seen  and  heard  of  the  sanitary  condition  of  Calcutta,  and  how  he 
urged  me,  after  I  had  acquainted  myself  with  the  facts,  to  expose  them 
officially  without  hesitation  or  reserve.  I  then  received  an  impression, 
which  never  afterwards  left  me,  of  admiration  for  his  strong  and  thor- 
oughly practical  character,  and  from  that  time  I  felt  towards  him  a 
personal  regard  which  went  on  always  increasing  with  the  unvarying 
friendship  which  he  gave  to  me. 

His  efTorts  for  the  improvement  of  the  health  and  comfort  of  the 
British  troops  were  constant  and  most  successful.  It  was  mainly  due  to 
him  that  measures  costing,  from  first  to  last,  more  than  10,000,000/.  were 
taken  for  providing  them  with  good  barracks  and  hospitals.  The  army 
in  India  is  now  housed  far  better  than  any  army  in  the  world,  and  the 
improvement  in  the  health  of  the  soldiers  and  the  reduction  in  the  rate 
of  mortality  have  been  extraordinary.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Indian 
jails.     All  this  work  was  virtually  set  in  hand  by  Lord  Lawrence. 

Another  important  measure  for  which  he  deserved,  as  Viceroy,  the 
chief  honour,  was  the  creation,  in  the  face  of  much  obstruction  and  oppo- 
sition, of  a  Department  for  the  care  and  preservation  of  the  forests, 
which,  in  many  parts  of  India,  were  being  rapidly  destroyed. 

I  have  referred  above  to  his  measures  for  increasing  the  scandalously 
insufficient  pay  of  the  Native  Judges  and  of  the  Ministerial  Officers  of 
the  Courts.  He  was  satisfied  that  there  could  be  no  honest  administra- 
tion of  justice  until  this  was  done.  His  anticipations  have  been  fulfilled 
by  the  results.  The  improvement  in  the  character  and  reputation  of  the 
Native  Courts  has  been  immense,  and  this  has  been,  in  no  small  degree, 
due  to  the  measures  first  taken  by  Lord  Lawrence. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

TENANT  RIGHT  AND  FOREIGN  POLICY.     1864-69. 

I  HAVE  reserved  for  this,  the  last  chapter  which  I  propose  to  devote 
to  the  Viceroyalty  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  the  two  questions — one 
of  internal,  the  other  of  external  policy,  which  were  most  charac- 
teristic of  his  administration  as  a  whole,  and  which,  it  may  be 
safely  asserted,  were  never  long  absent  from  his  thoughts,  from  the 
day  on  which  he  assumed  his  high  office  to  that  on  which  he  laid  it 
down.  The  question  of  internal  policy  to  which  I  refer  is  that 
which  appealed  to  his  deepest  sympathies,  which  called  forth  the 
most  acrimonious  attacks  upon  him,  obtained  for  him  the  widest 
unpopularity,  and  was  settled,  at  last,  on  terms  which  conferred 
great  benefits  on  all  concerned.  For  want  of  a  better  name,  it 
may  be  called  the  Tenant  Right  question.  The  settlement  arrived 
at  secured  indeed  the  rights  of  many  other  classes  besides  the 
tenants,  but  this  name  will  be  more  suggestive  than  any  other  to 
English  readers,  who,  if  they  know  nothing  of  the  perplexed 
subject  of  the  tenure  of  land  in  India,  must,  perforce,  know  some- 
thing of  the  difficulties  connected  with  it  in  a  country  much  nearer 
home. 

No  other  Viceroy  could  have  fought  this  question  as  Sir  John 
Lawrence  fought  it.  For  no  other  Viceroy  could  have  had  the 
requisite  knowledge  drawn  from  his  own  wide  experience  of  the 
evils  which  were  to  be  guarded  against,  and  the  objects  which  were 
to  be  secured.  He  had  eyes  to  see  and  ears  to  hear  things  which 
must  have  been  invisible  and  inaudible  to  any  statesman  whose 
experience  was  drawn  from  England  only,  to  anyone,  in  short,  who 
had  not  learned  to  thread  his  way  through  the  labyrinth  of  land 
tenures  prevailing  in  different  parts  of  India,  and  who  did  not  know 
the  merits  and  the  shortcomings  not  only  of  the  Talukdar  and  of 
the  Ryot,  but  also  of  the  numerous  intermediate  grades  of  sub- 
proprietors  and  occupiers  of  the  soil.  Almost  alone,  Sir  John 
Lawrence  undertook  the  cause  of  the  weak  and  the  oppressed 
against   the   united    influence   of    the   native    aristocracy,    of   the 

475 


476  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

planters,  of  the  press,  of  a  portion  of  his  own  Council,  of  the  Sec- 
retary of  State  at  home,  and  of  the  European  element  generally  in 
India  ;  and  if  he  could  not  win  for  them,  in  the  face  of  so  powerful 
an  opposition,  all  that  he  wished,  he  secured,  at  least,  all  that  was 
practicable  for  those  patient  millions  who  too  often,  even  under 
English  rule,  suffer  and  make  no  cry,  starve  and  make  no  sign.  It 
is  well  indeed  that,  once  in  a  way,  the  natives  of  India  should  have 
a  Viceroy  who  can  look  at  things,  primarily,  from  their  point  of 
view,  and  see  that  justice  is  done  to  those  who  have  the  least  power 
of  securing  it  for  themselves. 

It  would  be  impossible,  within  the  space  at  my  disposal,  to  track 
out  fully  the  various  windings,  and  to  explain  all  the  vicissitudes 
which  this  controversy  underwent  in  Bengal  proper,  in  Oude,  and 
in  the  Punjab.  But  no  sketch  of  the  Viceroyalty  of  Sir  John 
Lawrence  would  be  adequate  or  even  true  which  did  not  aim  at 
bringing  into  strong  relief  a  subject  which,  however  unintelligible 
or  uninteresting  in  its  details  to  the  general  reader,  yet  lay  very 
near  to  his  heart,  and  upon  his  action  in  which  he  was  always  able 
to  look  back  with  unalloyed  satisfaction. 

The  question  came  to  the  front,  first,  in  Bengal,  and  was,  in  some 
of  its  essentials,  soonest  settled  there.  I  therefore  propose  to  take 
it  first.  There  had  been  in  the  Bengal  Presidency  disputes  of  long 
standing  between  the  Ryots  and  the  Zemindars,  between  the 
cultivators,  that  is,  who  grew  indigo,  and  the  planters,  generally 
Europeans,  who  compelled  the  cultivators  to  grow  it,  and  then, 
themselves,  manufactured  and  sold  it.  There  had  been,  as  might 
be  expected,  much  indolence,  evasion,  and  cunning  on  the  part  of 
the  weak  ;  much  greed,  ill-usage,  and  oppression  on  the  part  of  the 
strong.  At  last,  in  1859,  a  measure  known  as  the  '  Rent  Law  '  was 
passed,  which  secured  or  seemed  to  secure  to  the  peasants  those 
rights  which  Lord  Cornwallis  had  dangled  before  their  eyes  and 
had  then  practically,  though  quite  unintentionally,  taken  away  from 
them  at  the  time  of  the  Permanent  Settlement,  more  than  half  a 
century  before — security,  that  is,  from  arbitrary  eviction  as  well  as 
from  an  arbitrary  raising  of  their  rent.  The  Indigo  Commission, 
too,  which  was  appointed  in  i860  under  the  presidency  of  W.  S. 
Seton-Karr,  carried  on  the  good  work,  and  succeeded  in  settling 
many  of  the  differences  between  the  planters  and  the  Ryots. 

But  quarrels  were  still  rife.  The  peasants  refused  to  cultivate  a 
plant  which  did  not  remunerate  them,  and  the  planters  retaliated, 
sometimes,  by  rigidly  exacting  the  existing  rent,  and  in  default  of 
payment  ejecting  the  cultivators  from  their  holdings,  to  their  utter 


1864-69       TENANT    RIGHT    AND   FOREIGN    POLICY.  477 

ruin  ;  sometimes  by  demanding  an  extravagant  rise  of  rent.  A  test 
case  of  this  kind  was  brought  before  Sir  Barnes  Peacock,  the  Chief 
Justice,  and  to  the  delight  of  the  planters  and  the  dismay  of  the 
Ryots  and  their  friends,  he  decided  that  the  so-called  *  Fair  Rent ' 
on  which  the  cultivators  were  entitled  to  security  in  their  holdings, 
was  the  highest  rent  which  the  planters  could  obtain  in  the  market. 
This  decision  struck  at  the  root  of  all  tenant  right,  and  was  one  of 
the  first  matters  which  attracted  the  attention  of  Sir  John  Lawrence 
when  he  came  out  as  Viceroy.  Of  course,  he  saw  the  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  a  satisfactory  settlement.  He  says,  on  April  3,  to  Sir 
Charles  Wood  : — 

I  do  not  know  what  will  please  the  Ryots,  and  at  the  same  time  satisfy 
the  Zemindars  and  their  representatives.  The  Ryots,  I  understand, 
desire  a  fixed  rent  and  security  from  interference.  Getting  these,  they 
would  agree  to  a  large  increase  of  rent.  The  planters  want  tlie  power 
of  enhancement  of  rent,  in  order  to  make  the  people  grow  indigo.  It  is 
no  use  legislating  until  we  can  arrange  matters  so  as,  in  some  degree, 
to  satisfy  both  parties.  .  .  .  Our  difficulties  and  dangers  are  at  home, 
in  the  country  ;  not,  I  mean,  at  present,  but  in  the  future,  in  the  bad 
feeling  between  the  two  races,  English  and  Native  ;  in  the  difficulty  in 
reconciling  their  interests.  These  things  are  never  out  of  my  mind, 
night  or  day  ;  but  how  to  reconcile  people  to  what  is  wise,  and  politic, 
and  good  for  both,  there  is  the  rub  ! 

Sir  John  Lawrence's  letters  to  his  personal  friends  at  home,  the 
Duke  of  Argyll,  Sir  Frederic  Currie,  Sir  Erskine  Perry,  Sir  John 
Willoughby,  Mr.  Mangles,  and  Captain  Eastwick,  are  full  of  re- 
marks on  this  important  subject,  and  are  all  of  them  couched  in 
the  same  tone  of  sober  sadness  and  anxiety.  To  Captain  Eastwick 
he  says : — 

The  great  difficulties  here  are  those  between  the  Englishmen  and  the 
Natives.  It  is  these  which  v/ill,  in  the  long  run,  damage,  if  not  ruin  our 
power. 

To  Sir  Erskine  Perry  : — 

This  question  of  conflicting  interest  between  the  Englishman  and  the 
Native  is  daily  assuming  larger  proportions.  In  Assam  and  Cachar  the 
natives  are  cajoled  to  go  down.  But  on  their  arrival  they  find  the 
country  and  climate  very  distasteful.  Many  die,  more  run  away,  and  so 
the  cry  is  for  punitive  measures.  Some  of  the  planters  are  harsh  and  even 
cruel  to  these  recusant  coolies,  and  tlius  the  evil  is  increased. 

He  says,  on  another  occasion,  to  the  same  friend  : — 


4/8  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

The  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  Government  of  India  acting  fairly  in 
these  matters  is  immense.  If  anything-  is  done  or  attempted  to  be  done 
to  help  the  natives,  a  general  howl  is  raised,  which  reverberates  in  Eng- 
land, and  finds  sympathy  and  support  there.  I  feel  quite  bewildered 
sometimes  what  to  do.  Everyone  is,  in  the  abstract,  for  justice,  moder- 
ation, and  such  like  excellent  qualities,  but  when  one  comes  to  apply 
such  principles,  so  as  to  affect  anybody's  interests,  then  a  change  comes 
over  them.  .  .  .  No  doubt,  the  capitalist  and  speculator  do  good  in  their 
way,  and,  when  they  are  just  men,  there  is  no  drawback  to  the  advan- 
tages which  follow  their  labours.  But  there  are  many  who  have  little 
thought  but  for  their  own  interests.  I  have  now  a  Bill  in  the  Bengal 
Council  which  is  intended  to  regulate  arrangements  between  the  planter 
and  coolies  in  Cachar  and  Assam,  and  the  problem  is  how  to  act  fairly 
to  both  parties. 

After  niuch  consideration,  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  propose  an  amendment  to  the  law  which  Sir  Barnes  Pea- 
cock's decision  had  made  to  tell  so  strongly  against  the  Ryots.  'We 
shall  have,'  he  says,  *  to  take  up  the  question  of  Act  X.  of  1859  next 
cold  weather,  and  I  anticipate  a  tough  fight.  But  if  Maine  will 
really  take  it  up  con  amore,  we  shall  succeed.  I  fear,  however,  that 
the  Ryots  will  never  have  fair  play.  There  are  too  many  and  too 
strong  interests  against  them.  There  will  be  much  abuse  heaped 
on  our  heads,  but  this  we  can  bear.'  Happily,  it  was  not  found 
necessary  to  have  recourse  to  legislative  action  ;  for  by  great  efforts 
on  the  part  of  the  friends  of  the  Ryots — of  whom  it  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  say  that  the  Viceroy  was  the  head  and  soul — the  decision  of 
the  Chief  Justice,  in  a  similar  case,  was  referred  to  the  whole  of  the 
judges  of  the  High  Court,  when  it  was  found  that  fourteen  out  of 
the  fifteen  were  in  favour  of  reversing  it,  the  one  dissenting  being 
Sir  Barnes  Peacock  himself  !  They  decided,  in  fact,  that  rents  in 
Bengal  were  assessed  not  under  contract  but  under  custom,  and 
that  they  could  only  be  enhanced  in  proportion  to  the  enhanced 
value  of  the  produce.  The  battle  was  thus,  in  some  measure,  won  ; 
and  the  result  arrived  at  has  proved  to  be  equally  beneficial  to  the 
rich  and  to  the  poor,  to  the  planter  and  to  the  cultivator. 

To  another  proposition  which  would.  Sir  John  Lawrence  thought, 
have  pressed  with  almost  equal  severity  on  the  Ryots  in  Bengal,  he 
gave  an  equally  uncompromising  opposition.  It  had  been  said, 
while  the  indigo  disputes  were  at  their  height,  that  Englishmen 
could  never  invest  their  capital  in  the  country  unless  contracts  made 
by  them  with  the  natives  were  enforced,  not  as  they  are  in  all  civil- 
ised countries,  by  an  action  for  damages  in  a  civil  court,  but  by  a 
criminal  suit  with  the  penalty  of  imprisonment.     The  bill  founded 


1864-69       TENANT   RIGHT   AND   FOREIGN    POLICY.  479 

on  this  proposal  was,  aptly  enough,  named  by  the  natives  '  the 
Slavery  Bill ; '  for  serfdom,  if  not  slavery,  it  wopld,  assuredly,  have 
brought  on  the  Ryots,  who  would  have  fallen  an  easy  prey  to  clever 
and  unscrupulous  land  agents.  Unable  to  read  and  often  even  to 
understand  the  provisions  of  the  contract  which  they  were  cajoled 
into  signing,  they  would  have  found  themselves  on  a  sudden  clapped 
into  prison,  very  possibly  for  some  unconscious  breach  of  its  pro- 
visions. The  Bill  had  in  i860  actually  passed  into  law  for  six 
months,  and  many  natives  had,  during  that  period,  been  thrown  into 
prison  under  its  operation.  But  when  in  i86r,  the  question  came 
up — whether  the  Bill  should  be  renewed  or  not,  there  was  a  great 
difference  of  opinion.  Lord  Canning  and  his  Council  said,  '  Yes.' 
The  Bengal  Government  and  the  Indigo  Commission  said,  '  No  ; ' 
and  Sir  Charles  Wood  settled  the  matter  by  decisively  agreeing 
with  the  latter.  But  the  proposal  was  now  revived,  as  Sir  John 
Lawrence  thought,  in  a  hardly  less  deleterious  shape,  in  some 
clauses  called  the  '  Specific  Performance '  clauses,  in  an  otherwise 
excellent  measure.  To  these  clauses,  therefore,  he  offered  a 
strenuous  opposition. 

I  have  been  thinking  (he  says  to  Sir  Charles  Wood)  a  good  deal  over 
the  contract  question  in  Bengal  ;  and  the  more  I  hear  and  read  the  less  I 
like  it.  I  do  not  think  it  will  do  to  introduce  the  '  Specific  Performance ' 
clauses  of  Maine's  Bill.  I  am  sure  that  these  clauses  will  work  oppress- 
ively towards  the  Ryots,  and  will  lead  to  great  exasperation  and  bad 
blood,  and  I  hope  you  will  not  advocate  them.  The  state  of  the  rent 
question  is  quite  unfavourable  to  the  Ryots.  It  is  used  as  an  engine  to 
coerce  them  into  entering  into  contracts  which  they  abhor.  Then  they 
break  their  contracts  ;  and  so  our  law,  instead  of  protecting  them,  will 
be  used  to  their  damage  and  ruin.  These  are  my  deliberate  opinions. 
So  pray  don't  ask  me  to  pass  the  Contract  Law — or  rather — the  clauses 
to  which  I  have  alluded.  They  can  do  no  good,  and  they  are  sure  to  do 
harm. 

Again,  on  another  occasion,  he  writes  : — 

What  seems  to  me  the  real  objection  to  these  '  Specific  Performance  ' 
clauses  is,  that  it  is  the  Ryot  and  not  the  Planter  who  requires  protec- 
tion. He  is  not  a  free  man.  He  is  coerced  into  making  contracts 
which  are  unprofitable  and  vexatious.  And  then  when  tempted  to  break 
them,  he  is  heavily  punished.  The  conditions  attached  to  the  clauses 
will  do  him  no  good.  He  has  not  the  capacity  or  courage  to  fight  his 
cause  effectively.  Had  he  such  qualities,  he  would  never  have  signed 
the  contract  itself.  It  will  be  held  in  tcrroretn  over  the  Ryot,  that  a 
contract,  however  morally  bad,  will  be  enforced.  And  so  he  will  be 
coerced   into  complying  with  its  terms.    ...  I  do  hope   most  earnestly 


48o  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

that  you  will  not  ag^ree  to  the  clauses.  Otherwise  they  will,  assuredly, 
become  an  engine  of  oppression  and  extortion.  There  is  no  security  to 
the  Ryot  except  in  rejecting  them  altogether. 

This  was  the  only  question  connected  with  the  rights  of  the 
tenants  in  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  found  himself  in  partial  opposi- 
tion to  the  high  authority  of  Henry  Maine,  his  staunch  ally  in  all 
such  (juestions.  But  he  continued  to  press  his  views  with  charac- 
teristic earnestness  on  each  successive  Secretary  of  State,  Sir  Charles 
Wood,  Lord  de  Grey,  Lord  Cranborne  and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote. 
And  in  the  last  year  of  his  Viceroyalty  I  find  a  letter  to  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote,  in  which  he  shows  no  diminution,  but  rather  an  increase 
of  zeal  in  what  was  to  him  so  sacred  a  cause. 

To  the  cultivators  (he  says)  of  Bengal,  Behar,  and  Orissa  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  vital  importance  in  my  mind,  whether  there  shall  be  a  law  of  the 
kind  or  not.  The  Ryot  is  not  a  free  agent.  He  does  not  enter  into 
such  contracts  of  his  free-will  and  pleasure.  These  contracts,  hitherto, 
at  any  rate,  have  borne  very  hardly  on  him.  From  time  to  time,  he  has 
endeavoured  to  escape  from  them,  and  he  would  do  so,  as  a  general 
rule,  at  all  times  if  he  saw  how  to  do  it.  But,  though  cunning  enough 
in  his  way,  he  is  weak,  he  is  timid,  he  is  ignorant  ;  and,  therefore,  he 
cannot  fight  his  cause,  which  is  essentially  a  just  one,  successfully.  The 
'Specific  Performance'  clauses  would  only  serve  to  rivet  the  chains 
which  I  would  gladly  help  to  knock  off,  I  do  not  think  that  the  members 
of  Council  really  approve  of  the  present  system  of  indigo  cultivation. 
But  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  they  believe  that  any  move  in  favour 
of  the  cultivator  would  be  denounced  by  very  influential  classes,  and 
that  they  would  gladly  avoid  the  odium  which  such  a  course  would  entail. 
Many  of  the  civilians  in  Bengal  are  similarly  influenced.  They  hope 
that  things,  if  they  are  left  alone,  will  gradually  adjust  themselves  ;  and 
no  doubt,  to  some  extent,  this  has  already  been  the  case.  In  Lower 
Bengal,  the  cultivation  of  indigo  has  gradually  collapsed,  but  the  strug- 
gle between  the  Planters  and  Ryots  is  still  on  an  unsatisfactory  footing 
everywhere  in  this  part  of  India.  Latterly,  it  has  been  most  heard  of  in 
Behar  and  the  upper  part  of  Bengal.  Last  year,  it  was  chiefly  heard  of 
in  Tirhoot.  This  year,  it  has  raged  in  ChumjTarum.  The  planters 
have,  however,  gradually  consented  to  raise  prices,  and  so  the  evil  day 
has  been  for  a  time  staved  off.  It  appears  to  me  that  anything  in  the 
shape  of  a  'Specific  Performance  '  law,  which  the  planter  could  bring  to 
bear  on  the  Ryot,  would  only  encourage  him  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
present  system,  and  would  too  surely  end,  after  much  suffering  to  the 
Ryot,  in  disturbance  and  ruin  to  the  planter  himself.  Whereas  by  giv- 
ing him  no  assistance  beyond  what  the  ordinary  civil  law  affords  and  by 
ventilating  the  present  system,  he  will  be  compelled  to  treat  the  Ryot 
more  fairly,  or  to  confine  his  indigo  cultivation  to  his  home  farms.  For 
these  reasons,  I  am  opposed  to  the  'Specific  Performance'  clauses. 


1864-69        TENANT    RIGHT    AND    FOREIGN    POLICY.  48 1 

The  controversy  respecting  tenant  right  in  Oude  was  much  more 
complicated.  It  excited  even  more  bitter  feelings,  and  lasted  even 
longer,  than  the  controversy  in  Bengal.  By  the  famous  Oude 
Proclamation  of  1858,  of  which  I  have  already  spoken.  Lord  Can- 
ning had  confiscated  every  acre  in  the  country,  except  the  property 
of  a  few  so-called  'loyalists,'  to  the  British  Crown.  He  wished — 
so  it  would  seem,  judging  by  his  subsequent  acts — to  make  a  tabula 
rasa  of  all  previous  claims  and  tenures  in  the  country,  and  then  to 
start  afresh.  Oude,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  the  only  province 
ia  the  whole  of  India  in  which  the  inhabitants  generally,  and  not 
least  the  landholders,  had  joined  the  mutineers.  Lord  Canning, 
therefore,  before  setting  himself  to  right  their  wrongs,  determined 
to  commit  one  great  apparent  wrong  the  more,  and  so  to  make  all 
alike  feel  that,  whatever  rights  they  received  or  retained,  they  owed 
them  all  to  the  free  bounty  of  the  British  Crown.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  the  rights  of  the  landowners  had  been  rather  cavalierly 
dealt  with  by  us  at  the  annexation  of  the  country  only  three  years 
before  ;  and  now  the  pendulum  was  to  take  a  swing  with  much 
greater  violence  in  the  other  direction.  For  Lord  Canning's  avowed 
object  was  to  resuscitate,  or  rather  to  create,  a  great  territorial  aris- 
tocracy like  that  of  England,  whose  interests  should  be  bound  up 
with  the  new  settlement,  and  whose  influence  would  be  enlisted 
against  any  disaffection  to  English  rule  which  might  be  felt  by  the 
masses  of  the  people. 

Of  course,  Lord  Canning  never  intended  to  sacrifice  all  other 
interests  and  rights  in  the  country  to  those  of  a  naturally  selfish 
aristocracy.  On  the  contrary,  each  sufmud,  or  title-deed,  which 
was  given  with  the  property  to  its  old  or  new  holder,  contained  a 
proviso  which  ran  as  follows  : — *  It  is  a  condition  of  this  grant  that 
you  will,  so  far  as  it  is  in  your  power,  promote  the  agricultural 
prosperity  of  your  estate.  And  all  who  hold  under  you  shall  be 
secured  in  the  possession  of  all  subordinate  rights,  which  formerly 
they  enjoyed.'  Now,  in  India,  between  the  Talukdar,  or  superior 
landlord,  and  the  Ryot,  who  is,  sometimes,  only  a  tenant-at-will, 
there  are,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  usually  to  be  found  many  inter- 
mediate grades  of  hereditary  cultivators — men,  that  is,  entitled, 
not  so  much  by  law  as  by  custom,  which  is,  to  a  great  extent,  the 
law  of  the  East — to  security  of  tenure  on  payment  of  a  stipulated 
rent  ;  and  this  rent  is  always  less,  and  very  often  much  less,  than 
the  marketable  rent  of  the  holding.  What  was  to  happen  to  all 
these  classes,  the  very  bone  and  sinew,  as  we  had  found  them  to  be, 
of  all  other  parts  of  the  country  ?  The  settlement  of  the  Revenue 
VOL.  II. — 31 


4^2  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

was  just  going  on,  and  now,  if  ever,  was  the  time  to  record  their 
rights.  But  Sir  Charles  Wingfield,  the  Chief  Commissioner  of 
Oude,  when  he  was  asked  by  Sir  John  Lawrence  what  steps  he  was 
taking  to  preserve  the  subordinate  rights  in  the  land,  answered  that 
there  were  no  such  rights  ;  in  other  words,  that  in  Oude,  hence- 
forward, there  were  to  be  two  classes,  and  only  two,  connected  with 
the  land — the  great  territorial  magnates  at  one  end  of  the  scale, 
and  the  Ryots,  or  mere  tenants-at-will,  on  the  other. 

Sir  John  Lawrence  was  not  and  could  not  be  satisfied  with  this 
state  of  things.  He  felt  indeed  that  it  was  possible  and  even  prob- 
able that  the  infamous  government  of  the  Nawabs,  which  had  pre- 
ceded our  own,  might  have  succeeded  in  obliterating,  for  the 
time,  many  of  the  most  ancient  and  sacred  rights  of  their  subjects. 
But  he  knew  also  that  those  rights,  especially  those  of  the  village 
communities,  were  endowed  with  strong  and  almost  indestructible 
vitality  ;  that,  many  times  over  in  the  history  of  India,  they  had 
been  apparently  swept  away  by  the  waves  of  Tartar,  or  Afghan,  or 
Mahratta  conquest,  but  that  when  the  storm  had  passed  by — some- 
times not  till  many  years  after  it  had  passed  by — they  had  again 
raised  their  heads.  These  rights  it  had  been  our  privilege  and  our 
pride  in  other  provinces  to  search  for  and  jealously  to  preserve. 
What,  if  British  conquest,  which  had  been  the  means  of  preserving 
or  resuscitating  these  ancient  rights  in  the  North-West  and  in  the 
Punjab,  and  with  the  best  results,  was  now  to  be  made  the  means 
of  crushing  them,  beyond  hope  of  resurrection,  in  Oude  ?  The 
thought  was  intolerable  to  him.  So  he  ordered  an  inquiry  to  be 
made  into  the  matter,  and  appointed  Henry  Davies,  one  of  the 
ablest  of  the  Punjab  settlement  officers,  as  a  Special  Commissioner, 
who  was  to  give  a  fair  hearing  to  any  claims  of  the  kind  which 
might  be  brought  before  him. 

This  was  a  simple  act  of  justice  on  his  part.  But  it  raised  an 
outcry  against  him,  compared  with  which  all  former  outcries 
seemed  but  inarticulate  or  inaudible  babble.  The  Talukdars  be- 
came alarmed  for  their  property.  A  cry  of  breach  of  faith  was 
raised  by  tlie  Press.  The  Governor-General,  it  was  said,  had  de- 
termined, in  accordance  with  his  antecedents,  to  destroy  the 
Talukdars,  and  to  create  new  rights,  which  would  swallow  up  theirs. 
A  letter  was  forged,  which  purported  to  come  from  the  Government 
of  India  to  the  Special  Commissioner  in  Oude,  and  bade  him  make 
short  work  of  the  landowners  !  It  was  published  in  the  Indian 
newspapers  by  those  who  had,  probably,  had  a  large  share  in  its 
concoction,  and  it  was  copied  into  Tory  newspapers  in  England, 


1864-69         TENANT    RIGHT    AND   FOREIGN    POLICY.  483 

which  at  once  raised  the  cry  of  '  the  aristocracy  in  danger.'  The 
cool-headed  Lord  Stanley,  who  had  so  recently  been  Secretary  of 
State  for  India,  shared  the  alarm,  and  even  Sir  Charles  Wood,  the 
existing  Secretary  of  State,  became  anxious,  expressed  his  regret 
that  the  question  had  been  stirred,  bade  the  Governor-General  be 
extremely  cautious,  and  went  so  far  as  to  beg  him  to  modify  the  in- 
structions which  he  had  given  to  Davies. 

And  how  did  Sir  John  Lawrence  face  the  storm  ?  Before  taking 
a  single  step  in  the  matter,  he  had  drawn  up  a  Memorandum,  which 
he  sent  to  Sir  Charles  Wood,  and  caused  to  be  circulated  amongst 
the  members  of  both  Councils.  In  this  document  he  had  set  forth, 
in  well-weighed  language,  alike  his  methods  and  his  motives,  and 
had  answered,  by  anticipation,  many  of  the  objections  which  were 
now  raised  to  his  action.  Accordingly,  he  now  *  stood  to  his  guns,' 
defended  what  he  had  done,  pointed  out  that  he  had  ordered  *  in- 
quiry' and  nothing  more,  an  inquiry  which  would  establish  indeed 
the  rights  of  the  cultivators,  if  any  such  were  still  found  to  exist, 
but  would  make  the  privileges  of  the  landlords  doubly  secure  and  un- 
impeachable, if  these  rights  had  been  extinguished.  And  so  tak- 
ing the  bit  in  his  teeth,  he  declined  to  modify  any  of  the  instruc- 
tions he  had  given  to  the  Special  Commissioner. 

But,  on  these  subjects.  Sir  John  Lawrence  shall  speak  for  himself. 
And  from  among  the  mass  of  papers  before  me,  while  I  quote  some 
of  his  letters  to  Sir  Charles  Wood,  I  select  by  preference  those 
written  by  him  to  other  personal  friends  in  England,  since  they 
bring  out  his  views  more  vividly.  I  give  first  the  letter  to  Sir 
Charles  Wood,  which  accompanied  his  Memorandum. 

June  28,  1864, 
I  think  it  as  well  to  send  you  a  copy  of  a  Memorandum  which  I  have 
drawn  up  regarding  the  settlements  in  Oude.  I  have  done  my  best  to 
effect  a  compromise  with  Wingfield  in  this  matter,  but  have  failed.  It 
is  now  the  point  whether  these  settlements  shall  be  carried  on  almost 
entirely  for  the  benefit  of  the  Talukdars,  or,  in  some  small  degree,  for 
the  good  of  all  the  people  connected  with  the  soil.  You  know  that  I 
never  admired  Lord  Canning's  edict,  whereby  the  village  communities 
were  sacrificed  for  the  sake  of  the  Talukdars.  But  I  have,  nevertheless, 
scrupulously  maintained  the  arrangement,  confirmed  as  it  was  from 
home.  When  the  letter  confirming  that  edict  was  before  you,  Currie 
and  I  stipulated  that  the  subordinate  rights  in  the  land  should  be  re- 
garded, and  you  consented  to  do  so.  Orders  to  this  effect  were  sent  out. 
But  they  were  practically  a  dead  letter.  My  Memorandum  is  now  in 
circulation  with  the  Council.  I  shall  do  nothing  in  a  hurry  ;  but  we 
must  recollect  that  large  sums  are  now  being  expended  in  carrying  on 


484  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

the  settlements,  and  that  some  of  this  work  will  have  to  be  done  over 
again,  if  a  modification  of  the  system  is  to  be  made.  The  sooner  there- 
fore that  this  is  enforced  the  better.  I  would  much  rather  that  Wing- 
field  remained  in  Oude,  but  would  sooner  that  he  left  than  that  the 
Talukdars  should  have  their  own  way. 

To  his  friend,  Sir  Frederic  Currie,  he  writes,  about  the  same 
time  : — 

It  is  much  against  the  grain  that  I  have  moved  in  this  matter.  But  it 
was  impossible  for  me  to  refrain.  You  know  how  anxiously  I  worked 
when  in  Council  at  homeland  in  concurrence  with  yourself — to  miti- 
gate the  evils  of  the  Talukdari  policy,  whilst  assenting  to  that  policy  as  a 
fait  accojnpli.  I  did  all  that  I  could  also  to  smooth  off  matters  with 
Wingfield.  I  look  to  you  therefore  for  support  in  this  matter,  though 
quite  ready  to  stand  to  my  colours  alone. 

The  controversy  went  on  with  unabated  force  and  bitterness 
during  the  next  nine  months,  and  to  Captain  Eastwick  he  writes  on 
March  16,  1865,  a  more  elaborate  letter,  which  shows  the  man. 

As  regards  the  Oude  question,  I  have  written  very  fully  to  Sir  Charles 
Wood,  answering  all  the  points  which  have  been  raised  against  my  acts. 
I  daresay  he  will  show  you  my  letter.  At  any  rate,  Lwill  not  inflict  all 
my  arguments  on  you,  and  indeed  I  have  not  time  to  do  it  if  I  were  so 
inclined.  Though  I  do  not  even  admire  or  approve  of  Lord  Canning's 
Oude  policy,  because  he  decided  on  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  vil- 
lage proprietors  without  giving  them  a  fair  hearing,  I  might  say  any 
hearing  at  all,  I  have  no  sort  of  objection  whatever  to  the  Talukdari 
tenure  itself.  Had  there  been  a  full  inquiry  before  decision,  and  had  the 
result  given  the  Talukdars  all  that  they  now  enjoy,  I  would  never  have 
said  a  word.  But,  whatever  may  be  the  merits  of  that  policy,  I  accepted 
it,  with  the  reservations  made  by  the  Secretary  of  State.  I  have  no 
doubt  whatever  that  Lord  Canning  had  nothing  more  in  his  mind  than  to 
settle  the  vexed  question  between  the  TaUikdar  and  the  village  pro- 
prietor, and  left  all  other  points  to  be  adjusted  on  their  merits.  But 
whether  he  did  mean  so  or  not,  his  words  cover  all  other  interests,  pro- 
vided they  are  still  in  existence.  Neither  Wingfield  nor  Currie  denies, 
that  if  any  tenant  rights  exist,  they  must  be  respected.  Where  then  is 
the  occasion  for  the  great  fuss  which  has  been  raised  ?  The  opponents 
of  my  policy  say,  because  you  excite  men's  minds,  and  stir  them  up  to 
make  complaints  which  otherwise  would  never  be  heard.  Now  this  ap- 
pears to  me  to  be  most  unreasonable.  The  objects  of  these  settlements 
have  been  twofold,  one  to  fix  the  revenue,  the  other  to  dispose  of  all 
claims  to  land,  all  interests  in  the  soil.  With  this  object,  we  shut  the 
regular  Civil  Courts  during  the  inquiry,  and  formally  invest  the  Revenue 
Courts  with  judicial  powers — and  we  rule  that  unless  claims  are  made  in 


1864-69       TENANT    RIGHT    AND   FOREIGN    POLICY.  485 

a  given  time,  they  will  be  barred  from  a  future  hearing — and  yet,  in  mak- 
ing all  these  arrangements,  the  Chief  Commissioner,  the  officer  who  is  to 
hear  all  these  suits  in  the  last  resort,  by  a  circular  injunction,  tells  his 
officers  not  to  hear  a  particular  kind  of  claim.  How  can  it  be  said  that 
I,  in  any  way,  prejudge  these  claims,  when  I  do  not  hear  the  suits  at  all ; 
when  my  action  is  limited  to  removing  a  bar  to  their  being  brought  be- 
fore a  proper  court  ?  If  men  have  no  such  rights,  or  if  they  have  long 
lost  them  ;  in  the  one  case,  they  will  not  make  them,  and,  in  the  other, 
they  will  be  rejected  ;  and  so  the  result  will  be  that  the  possessions  of 
the  Talukdar  will  become  more  safe  and  secure  than  before. 

One  of  the  main  causes  of  the  excitement  in  this  matter,  is  that  several 
Englishmen  have  obtained  estates  in  Oude.  The  question  also  bears  on 
the  present  struggle  in  Bengal  ;  and  so,  nearly  all  the  Press,  as  repre- 
senting the  native  landowners  on  the  one  side,  and  the  English  planter 
on  the  other,  are  arrayed  against  me.  But  this  is  no  reason  why  I 
should  not  stand  to  my  guns,  and  do  what  I  believe  to  be  fair  and  just. 
People  in  England  talk  a  good  deal  of  truth  and  justice,  but  when  one 
desires  to  apply  such  principles,  they  are  astonished  and  begin  to  com- 
plain. Surely,  the  fact  that  Wingfield  was  the  exponent  of  Lord  Can-. 
ning's  policy,  and  had  throughout,  tried  to  narrow  that  policy  to  the 
detriment  of  all  interests  but  those  of  the  Talukdar,  are  grounds,  at  any 
rate,  for  receiving  what  he  states  with  much  caution.  My  friends  think 
that  I  have  not  been  just  to  him  in  my  Minutes.  I  am  sorry  for  it,  but  I 
believe  that  all  that  I  have  said  can  be  borne  out  by  his  own  letters  and 
proceedings.  It  is  not  very  easy,  however,  for  a  man  in  my  position, 
with  heavy  work  to  attend  to,  to  weigh  every  word  which  he  uses  ;  and 
I  admit  that  it  would  have  been  more  judicious  if  I  had  softened  ofifone 
or  two  of  my  expressions. 

Then,  as  regards  the  appointment  of  Davies  ;  I  took  him  because  I 
could  not  find  a  man  with  his  qualifications  available  elsewhere.  I 
went  over  the  list  of  officers  in  the  North-West  Provinces  with  Muir, 
the  senior  member  of  the  Sudder  Board,  and  we  could  not  lay  our  fingers 
on  a  man.  Montgomery,  who  was  the  first  patron  of  the  Talukdars  in 
Oude,  highly  approved  of  my  selection  of  Davies.  I  will  not  bother  you 
more  about  Oude  matters,  and  will  add,  that  if  the  question  be  fairly 
and  fully  considered,  I  have  no  fear  of  the  results,  and  that,  come  what 
may,  I  feel  that  I  have  only  done  my  duty. 

To  Sir  Charles  Wood's  proposal  that  he  should  withdraw  the 
instructions  which  he  had  given  to  Davies,  Sir  John  Lawrence 
returned,  as  I  have  said,  a  polite  refusal.  It  brought  out  all  the 
moral  courage  of  the  man. 

What  could  make  me,  he  asks,  take  the  course  that  I  have  done  in 
favour  of  the  Ryots  of  Oude,  but  a  strong  sense  of  duty  ?  I  understand 
the  question  right  well,  as  indeed  must  every  man  who  has  had  anything 
to  do  with   settlement   work.      I    have  no  wish   to  harm  the  Talukdai-s. 


486  LIFE   OP^    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

On  the  contrary,  I  desire  to  see  fair  play  to  tlieir  interests.  ...  It  would 
be  a  suicidal  act  for  me  to  come  forward  and  modify  the  instructions 
given  to  Davies.  The  Home  Government  may  do  this.  Parliament 
may  say  what  it  thinks  proper.  But  of  my  own  free  will  I  will  not  move, 
knowing,  as  I  do,  that  I  am  right  in  the  course  which  has  been  adopted. 
Did  ever  anyone  hear  of  the  Government  of  India  learning  that  a  class 
of  men  were  not  having  fair  play  at  the  time  of  settlement,  and  then 
failing  to  interfere  or  to  issue  such  orders  as  the  case  appeared  to  de- 
mand ? 

It  was  not  very  long  before  Sir  Charles  Wood  himself  admitted 
that  the  Governor-General  had  been  right  in  what  he  had  done. 
Unfortunately,  however,  for  the  interests  of  the  masses,  the  course 
of  the  investigation  showed  all  too  clearly  what  Sir  John  had  half 
feared  from  the  beginning,  that  the  intermediate  rights  which  had 
been  found  by  us  to  exist  everywhere  else  in  India,  had,  in  Oude, 
been  swept  away  by  the  acts  of  violence  which  had  been  the  order 
of  the  day  under  the  Nawabs.  He  had  hoped  for  the  best  from  all 
the  work  and  worry  he  had  gone  through  ;  but,  conscious  that  he 
had  done  his  duty,  he  was  also  prepared  for  the  worst,  and  he  writes 
thus  to  Currie  on  April  3  : — 

I  feel  quite  sure  tiiat  I  am  right  in  all  that  I  have  done,  and  indeed 
that  I  could  not  have  done  less.  ...  I  have  sent  Sir  Charles  Wood  a 
copy  of  one  of  Davies's  letters  giving  his  view  of  the  probable  results  of 
the  inquiry.  Wingfield  backs  the  Talukdars,  and  they  hold  to  him. 
The  cultivators  are  ignorant,  timid,  and  poor.  On  the  one  side  they  are 
cajoled,  on  the  other  intimidated,  the  object 'being  to  tide  over  the  period 
allowed  for  inquiry,  when  their  chances  will  be  gone.  My  object  is  to 
give  them  a  fair  and  full  chance  of  a  hearing  by  impartial  men.  Having 
done  this  much,  I  have  done  my  duty. 

Sir  John  Lawrence's  chief  correspondents  at  the  India  Office, 
Sir  Frederic  Currie  and  Captain  Eastwick,  had  supported  him 
warmly  in  most  of  what  he  had  done,  and,  much  to  his  delight, 
had  written  valuable  Minutes  on  his  side  of  the  question.  To 
Eastwick  he  writes  thus  on  May  i  : — 

Yours  is  a  very  good  Minute  and  calculated  to  produce  an  effect.  I 
am,  in  no  wise,  adverse  to  the  Talukdars  and  great  landowners  of  any 
kind  ;  but  I  see  not  why  we  should  help  them  to  swallow  up  the  petty 
interests  in  their  estates.  These  great  landowners  in  Oude,  in  many 
instances,  acquired  their  possessions  within  the  last  few  years  before 
annexation — say  thirty  or  forty — by  the  grossest  acts  of  spoliation  and 
oppression  ;  and  this  is,  to  my  mind,  an  additional  reason  for  protect- 
ing the  interests  of  the  under-tenantry.     As  for  tenant-right,  it  has  existed 


1864-69       TENANT    RIGHT   AND   FOREIGN    POLICY.  487 

all  over  India,  in  one  form  or  another,  from  the  most  remote  periods  ; 
and,  on  this  side  of  India,  our  laws  and  regulations  have  dealt  with  it, 
however  variably,  since  the  time  of  Warren  Hastings.  What  is  called 
the  'Thomasonian  theory  '  is  nothing  more  than  these  laws  set  forth  and 
what  the  common  law  of  the  country  has  admitted. 

But  I  must  cut  a  long  story  short.  Sir  Charles  Wingfield  retired 
in  the  spring  of  1866,  and  was  succeeded  in  his  office  of  Chief 
Commissioner  by  the  present  Sir  John  Strachey,  who,  after  a  year 
or  more  of  unceasing  effort,  succeeded  in  persuading  the  Talukdars 
to  consent  to  an  equitable  compromise,  which,  if  it  did  not  do  for 
the  cultivators  all  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  desired,  obtained 
for  them  all  that  was  practicable,  and  has  helped  to  make  Oude  the 
tolerably  peaceful  and  contented  province  which,  since  then,  it  has 
tended  to  become.  The  essential  principles  of  the  compromise 
arrived  at  were,  on  the  one  hand,  that  Government  should  create 
no  new  rights,  and  on  the  other,  that  the  privileges  which  practi- 
cally gave  fixity  of  tenure,  should,  in  the  case  of  all  cultivators  who 
had  been  originally  proprietors,  be  confirmed  and  secured  by  law. 
More  important  still,  it  was  agreed  that  cultivators  should  be  enti- 
tled, on  the  raising  of  their  rent,  to  compensation  for  what  would 
be  called  in  England  '  unexhausted  improvements,'  nor  could 
the  rent  be  raised  except  by  application  to  a  court  of  law  and 
equity. 

The  question  of  Tenant  Right  in  the  Punjab  I  must  dismiss 
more  briefly.  At  the  first  settlement  of  the  province  in  1853,  after 
the  English  conquest,  the  usual  record  had  been  taken  of  all  exist- 
ing rights  in  the  land.  But  long  afterwards  it  appeared  that  many 
who  now  claimed  to  be  superior  landlords  had  neglected  to  register 
their  names  as  such.  Possibly,  they  had  not  thought  it  worth  their 
while  to  do  so,  for  the  British  raj,  which  had  been  established  by 
the  sword,  might,  as  many  of  them  then  hoped  and  believed,  be 
overthrown  again  by  the  sword  at  no  distant  period.  Possibly,  they 
imagined  that  if  they  registered  themselves  as  tenants  only  they 
might  get  better  terms  from  the  State  than  if  they  called  themselves 
owners.  But,  in  any  case,  now  that  the  time  for  a  new  settlement 
was  approaching,  when  the  value  of  land  had  much  increased,  and 
it  was  seen  that  the  British  rule  was  not  to  be  overthrown,  these 
same  persons  endeavoured  to  resuscitate  their  imagined  rights,  at 
the  cost  of  the  sub-proprietors.  And  the  settlement  officers  in  the 
Punjab,  with  Edward  Prinsep  at  their  head,  seemed  inclined  to 
favour  their  claims.  The  question  which  the  Government  had  to 
decide  was  whether  the  rights  of  the  many,  which  had  existed  from 


488  LIFE   OF   LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

time  immemorial,  and  which  we  had  recognised  for  fifteen  years 
past,  should  be  sacrificed  to  the  claims  of  the  few.  It  must  be  re- 
membered that  rights  of  property  had  been  very  ill  defined  under 
Sikh  rule,  and  fifteen  years  of  uninterrupted  possession  under  our 
protection  might  well  be  supposed  to  confer  as  good  a  title  as  any 
Punjabi  would  care  to  have.  It  was  calculated  that  if  the  proposals 
of  the  new  settlement  ofificers  were  adopted,  out  of  60,000  heads 
of  families  in  the  Umritsur  district  who  were  entitled  to  their  ten- 
ancies at  beneficial  rates,  not  less  than  46,000  would  find  themselves 
suddenly  degraded,  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  to  the  status  of  tenants- 
at-will,  liable  to  rack  rents  and  to  eviction  !  This  would  be  an 
agrarian  revolution  with  a  vengeance  ;  and  it  was  not  likely  that 
Sir  John  Lawrence,  with  his  keen  sympathy  for  the  poorer  classes, 
would  see  it  carried  out  without  an  effort  at  least  to  mitigate  its 
effects,  and  to  ease  the  fall  of  the  beneficiary  tenants. 

Accordingly,  after  prolonged  inquiry  in  the  province,  a  bill  to 
define  and  amend  the  law  relating  to  land  tenancy  in  the  Punjab, 
was  introduced  into  the  Legislative  Council  on  January  17,  1868, 
by  Edward  Brandreth.  But  '  further  incpiiry '  was  demanded  by 
the  Opposition,  which  in  this  instance  included  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  Sir  W.  Mansfield,  Sir  Henry  Durand,  the  Military  Member 
of  Council,  and  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Bengal,  Mr.  Crey,  and 
they  gained  the  day.  The  inquiries  asked  for  were  made.  The 
conduct  of  the  Bill  passed  into  the  hands  of  Sir  Richard  Temple, 
the  new  Finance  Minister,  and  on  October  19,  a  great  debate  took 
place  at  Simla  on  the  subject.  He  was  warmly  supported  in  an 
exhaustive  speech  by  Sir  Henry  Maine,'  who  had  lately  returned 
from  England,  and  by  Sir  John  Strachey,  whose  experience  in  Oude 
had  made  him  master  of  the  subject.  Sir  Henry  Durand  had  gone 
on  furlough,  and  Sir  Henry  Norman,  who  was  '  acting '  for  him,  was 
also  in  favour  of  the  Bill.  More  than  this,  Sir  John  Lawrence 
summed  up  the  case  in  favour  of  the  Bill  in  a  speech  which  showed 
his  abounding  knowledge  and  his  command  of  all  the  intricacies 
of  the  subject. 

Reserving  my  judgment  (he  said)  on  details,  I  must  state  in  the  strong- 
est terms  my  anxiety  that  this  Bill  should  become  law  to-day,  without 
alteration  in  any  essential  particular.  The  problem  which  it  attempts 
to  solve  has  been  now  under  consideration  for  several  years,  and  has 
been  before  this  Government  for  three  years. 

'  The  whole  question  is  stated  in  an  admirable  letter  by  Sir  Henry  Maine  to 
the  YimcsioT  February  15,  1S70,  which  space  alone  forbids  my  quoting. 


1864-69       TENANT    RIGHT    AND  FOREIGN    POLICY.  489 

In  the  face  of  such  support,  the  Opposition  collapsed,  and  the 
bill  became  law  on  that  day. 

The  Act  (so  its  effects  have  been  summed  up  by  one  who  was  behind 
the  scenes,  W.  S.  Seton-Karr)  regulated  and  defined  the  position  of  ten- 
ants with  rights  of  occupancy  ;  it  protected  them  against  enhancement, 
except  under  pecuUar  conditions  ;  it  recognised  their  power  to  alienate 
their  tenures,  it  limited  the  privilege  of  pre-emption,  and  gave  the  option 
to  the  landlord  ;  and  with  an  almost  prophetic  apprehension  of  the  points 
at  issue  in  Ireland,  it  defined  the  improvements  which  might  be  made 
by  the  tenant,  and  specified  the  compensation  which  he  might  look  to 
receive. 

It  will  be  (adds  the  writer)  one  of  Lord  Lawrence's  titles  to  the  grati- 
tude of  posterity,  that  he  refused  to  elevate  the  Talukdars  by  depressing 
the  Ryot.  For  this,  he  allowed  himself  to  be  taunted  with  destructive 
statesmanship  and  with  illiberal  views  ;  for  this  he  fearlessly  encountered 
the  opposition  of  honest,  independent,  and  experienced  colleagues,  the 
clamours  of  the  Press,  and  the  certainty  of  misrepresentation  in  the 
Houses  of  Parliament.  But  when  the  voice  of  contemporary  faction  is 
stilled,  we  shall  applaud  the  forethought  which  prevented  the  growth  of 
bitter  feelings  in  the  dwellers  of  some  thousands  of  villages  ;  and  Lord 
Lawrence,  in  his  retirement,  may  calmly  reflect  that  he  undertook, 
pleaded,  and  won  the  cause  of  the  undefended  agriculturist,  and  that  he 
happily  terminated  a  growing  controversy  analogous  to  that  on  which, 
perhaps,  depend  at  this  moment  the  reputation  of  a  Cabinet  and  the 
fortunes  of  a  nation.' 

Since  the  above  account  of  the  Tenant  Right  question  in  India 
was  written,  I  have  received  from  Sir  John  Strachey  the  valuable 
letter  on  the  Viceroyalty  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  from  which  I  have 
already  made  a  long  quotation,  and  I  think,  looking  at  his  great 
knowledge  of  this  particular  subject,  and  at  the  very  important  part 
that  he  and  his  brother  have  played  in  the  Government  of  India 
ever  since,  that  it  will  be  well,  even  at  the  risk  of  a  certain  amount 
of  repetition  of  what  I  have  already  said  in  other  language,  to  quote 
the  remainder  of  his  letter  here.  Besides  giving  what  may  be  almost 
called  an  authoritative  view  of  the  Tenant  Right  question,  he  puts 
clearly  before  us  the  opinions  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  with  respect  to 
the  Income  Tax  in  India — a  question  still  much  disputed — and 
brings  out  a  point  of  great  interest,  which  does  not  appear  in  the 
papers  before  me,  the  part  borne  by  John  Stuart  Mill  in  the  Tenant 
Right  struggle  at  home. 

An  interesting  and  important  history  might  be  told  of  Lord  Lawrence's 

^  Edinhurgli  Rfvic7v  for  April,  1S70. 


490  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

persistent  efforts  to  recognise  the  rights,  and  improve  the  position  of  the 
tenants  and  cultivators  of  the  soil,  and  it  would  be  especially  interesting 
at  the  present  time,  when  problems  of  a  very  similar  character  have  to 
be  dealt  with  in  Ireland.  Nothing  in  his  life  did  him  greater  honour 
than  his  action  in  this  respect,  and  although  his  success  was,  at  the  time, 
incomplete,  his  declaration  and  maintenance  of  sound  principles,  in  the 
face  of  stronger  opposition  than  perhaps  any  Governor-General  ever 
had  to  face,  were  of  inestimable  value  to  India.  1  cannot  now  attempt 
to  write  this  history,  for  I  have  no  means  of  referring  to  papers  which 
would  be  essential.  But  at  the  same  time  I  cannot  remain  altogether 
silent  on  one  of  the  most  important  matters  in  which,  as  Viceroy,  he  was 
concerned.  It  is  a  matter,  too,  on  which  I  have  a  right  to  speak  with 
some  authority  in  regard  to  Lord  Lawrence's  opinions  and  proceedings, 
because  as  Chief  Commissioner  of  Oude,  and  afterwards  as  a  Member  of 
his  Council,  I  had  to  take  a  very  active  part  in  the  discussion  of  the  sub- 
ject, and  in  the  legislative  and  executive  measures  which  were  adopted. 

Much  of  the  following  account  of  the  measures  taken  by  Lord  Law- 
rence for  the  protection  of  tenants  in  Oude  and  the  Punjab  will  be  taken 
by  me,  with  little  alteration,  from  correspondence  on  the  subject  between 
my  brother.  General  R.  Strachey,  and  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  in  which 
I  myself  had  a  share.  It  represents  what  I  know  to  have  been  tlie  views 
of  Lord  Lawrence  himself.  I  may  add,  although  the  fact  is  not  known 
to  the  world,  that  it  was,  in  no  small  measure,  owing  to  Mr.  Mill's  per- 
sonal exertions  in  this  cause,  in  which  he  was  deeply  interested,  and  to 
the  strong  representations  made  by  him  personally  at  the  India  Office, 
that  Lord  Lawrence's  efforts  for  the  protection  of  the  rights  of  tenants 
in  the  Punjab  did  not  altogether  fail. 

"Whatever  may  have  been  the  faults  of  the  old  East  India  Company, 
its  views  for  the  last  thirty  years  of  its  existence  in  regard  to  all  questions 
affecting  proprietors  and  cultivators  of  the  land,  had  been  thoroughly 
enlightened.  Act  X.  of  1859,  although  passed  after  the  Company  had 
ceased  to  exist,  embodied  the  principles  which  had  long  been  acted 
upon.  These  were  that  the  improvements  of  land  in  India  depend  es- 
sentially upon  the  actual  cultivators  of  the  soil,  and  that  the  Government 
was  bound  to  maintain  the  ancient  system  of  the  country  in  regard  to 
the  tenure  of  land,  both  because  it  was  intrinsically  the  best  for  the  peo- 
ple at  large,  and  because,  at  the  same  time,  all  property  in  land  had,  by 
long  usage,  become  settled  upon  this  basis.  The  existence  of  peasant 
proprietors  was  fully  recognised  ;  and  where  the  land  was  cultivated  by 
tenants,  their  rents  were  limited  in  accordance  with  custom,  and  not 
regulated  by  competition  alone.  Rights  of  occupancy,  subject  in  every 
case  to  ascertained  usage,  were  duly  protected. 

With  the  mutinies  came  a  great  change.  Animosities  of  race  were 
excited,  and  profound  distrust  in  regard  to  our  hold  on  the  country  was 
created  by  the  sudden  disappearance  of  our  Government  over  a  large 
part  of  Upper  India,  when  the  physical  force  on  which  it  rested  was 
gone.     All  this  led  a  powerful   section  of  the  politicians  of  that  day  to 


1864-69         TENANT   RIGHT   AND   FOREIGN   POLICY.  49I 

fancy  that  strength  was  to  be  found  in  the  establishment  of  a  landed 
aristocracy  of  the  Enjjlish  type.  Thus  alone,  it  was  said,  should  we  enlist 
permanently  the  most  influential  interest  in  the  country  in  favour  of  the 
niaintenance  of  our  rule.  The  large  increase  in  the  number  of  ill-edu- 
cated Englishmen  in  India  which  followed  the  mutinies,  partly  as  a 
direct  result,  and  partly  from  the  great  development  given  to  undertak- 
ings requiring  English  capital  and  English  management,  helped  to  spread 
the  insane  desire  for  landlords  like  those  of  England.  The  agitation  re- 
garding waste  lands  and  the  inconveniences  and  disappointments  which, 
at  the  very  outset,  were  caused  by  the  discovery  that  subordinate  rights 
in  the  land  almost  everywhere  existed,  tended  in  the  same  direction. 
Under  the  excitement  thus  developed,  it  was  affirmed  that  occupancy 
rights  had  been  invented  by  ourselves,  and  that,  as  a  fact,  they  had  no 
real  existence. 

There  must  everywhere  be  a  great  landlord.  If  he  were  not  found, 
then  he  must  have  been  unjustly  swept  away.  In  the  face  of  the  most 
overwhelming  mass  of  evidence,  derived  not  only  from  India,  but  from 
almost  every  country  in  the  world,  excluding  England  and  her  colonies, 
it  was  declared  that  no  system  could  be  good  excepting  that  which  is,  in 
truth,  peculiar  to  England  ;  that  this  was  the  system  in  India  before  the 
establishment  of  our  rule  ;  and  that  it  must  again  be  introduced  when- 
ever and  wherever  it  was  possible. 

It  was  not  only  in  the  relation  between  cultivators  and  landlords  that 
change  was  demanded.  The  cry  was  raised  for  a  territorial  aristocracy. 
The  subdivision  of  estates  was  to  be  prohibited.  Succession  by  primo- 
geniture was  to  be  established. 

These  views  were  afterwards  put  forward,  in  their  most  extreme  form, 
in  Oude  by  the  Chief  Commissioner,  Sir  Charles  Wingfield.  Lord  Canning 
had  held  them  for  a  time,  and  the  result  had  been  that  most  astonishing 
proceeding,  the  proclamation  by  the  Governor-General  of  the  forfeiture 
of  all  landed  property  in  Oude. 

The  published  papers  relating  to  the  Oude  transactions,  and  the 
speeches  made  by  myself  in  the  Legislative  Council  on  the  Oude  Rent 
Act,  show  the  results  of  Lord  Canning's  proclamation,  and  of  the  meas- 
ures by  which  it  was  followed.  I  w^as  appointed  Chief  Commissioner  of 
Oude  by  Lord  Lawrence  in  1866.  and  the  duty  devolved  upon  me  of 
carrying  into  effect  iiis  determination  to  save  and  restore  such  remnants 
of  the  ancient  rights  as  had  not  been  hopelessly  swept  away.  The  task 
was  a  difficult  one  ;  for  Lord  Lawrence  always  admitted  that  he  was 
bound  to  respect  arrangements  which  had  been  declared  by  Lord  Can- 
ning to  be  final,  to  which  the  faith  of  the  British  Government  had  been 
solemnly  pledged  to  the  Talukdars,  and  which,  moreover,  had  been  con- 
firmed by  orders  and  sutittuds  having  the  force  of  law  in  Oude. 

Little  more  was  possible  than  to  secure  for  the  occupying  clgisses  and 
for  the  ousted  proprietors  of  the  land  the  best  terms  that  the  Talukdars 
could  be  persuaded  to  give,  or  that  tiie  Government  could  require,  with- 
out setting  aside  the  conditions  of  the  settlement  made  under  the  orders  of 


492  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

Lord  Canning.  It  must  be  added  that  Lord  Lawrence's  difficulties  in  deal- 
ing with  the  question  were  immensely  increased  by  the  bitter  hostility  to 
his  views  shown  by  nearly  the  whole  of  his  Council,  in  which,  indeed,  he 
received  from  Sir  Henry  Maine  alone  enlightened  sympathy  and  support. 

The  Government  at  home  and  the  India  Office  looked  with  little 
favour  on  his  supposed  desire  to  upset  the  work  of  his  predecessor  ;  and 
to  all  these  hostile  influences  was,  as  I  have  already  said,  added  at  that 
time,  the  hostility  of  an  excited  and  ignorant  public  opinion. 

Under  such  circumstances,  no  real  and  complete  success  was  possi- 
ble. It  was  matter  of  congratulation  that  anything  was  saved  at  all. 
Still,  Lord  Lawrence's  efforts  were  not  in  vain.  He  left  the  condition  of 
landed  tenures  in  Oude  far  better  than  he  found  it  ;  and  many  of  the 
most  cruel  and  scandalous  instances  of  injustice  were  redressed.  I  will 
not  attempt  to  describe  in  detail  the  measures  actually  adopted  for  the 
protection  of  tenants  and  of  subordinate  proprietors  and  others.  What- 
ever was  accomplished  was  entirely  due  to  the  resolution  of  Lord  Law- 
rence. The  condition  of  Oude  is  still  highly  unsatisfactory.  The 
existing  system  has  within  itself  elements  which  must  destroy  it.  The 
ultimate  recovery  of  the  province  will,  we  may  trust,  be  brought  about 
by  the  gradual  and  persistent  application  of  the  principles  which  Lord 
Lawrence  maintained  and,  as  far  as  possible,  carried  out.  The  elaborate 
attempt  to  create  in  Oude  a  great  landed  aristocracy  is  doomed  to  inevi- 
table failure. 

A  movement  similar  to  that  which  had  been  so  successful  in  Oude, 
began,  somewhat  later,  in  the  Punjab.  On  the  revision  of  the  original 
settlement  of  the  land  revenue,  which  had  been  made  when  the  Punjab 
first  became  a  British  province,  the  opportunity  was  taken  to  commence 
a  war  of  extermination  against  the  occupancy  tenants  of  the  country. 
The  history  of  these  proceedings  is  to  be  found  in  the  debates  of  the 
Legislative  Council  on  the  Punjab  Tenancy  Act,  and  especially,  in  the 
admirable  speeches  of  Henry  Maine. 

In  this  case,  as  in  Oude,  Lord  Lawrence  resolved  to  redress  as  far  as 
possible  the  injustice  that  had  been  done,  and  to  prevent  the  serious 
injury  to  the  country  which  he  was  satisfied  would  follow  from  the 
destruction  of  the  ancient  rights  of  the  tenants.  Here,  also,  his  difficul- 
ties were  great,  in  consequence  of  opposition  in  his  own  Council  and  in 
England.  And  all  that  was  possible  was  to  make  as  good  a  compromise 
as  could  be  effected. 

In  the  Punjab,  however,  matters  had  not  gone  nearly  so  far  as  in 
Oude,  and  a  better  residue  of  rights  was  saved  to  the  tenants.  More- 
over, the  Punjab  is,  mainly,  a  country  of  small  proprietors,  cultivating 
tiieir  own  lands  ;  and  for  this  reason  the  question  possessed  smaller 
practical  importance  than  it  possessed  in  Oude.  Still,  serious  sacrifices 
of  sound  -principle  had  to  be  made,  and  the  mischief  which  had  been 
done  could  only  partially  be  repaired.  As  I  have  said  above,  I  doubt 
whether  Lord  Lawrence  would  not  have  failed  altogether  in  these  efforts 
to  protect  his  old  province  from  injury,  if  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill  had  not 


1S64-69      TENANT    RIGHT  AND   FOREIGN    POLICY.  493 

interested  himself  in  the  matter  and  had  not  brought  his  wise  and  pacific 
influence  to  bear  against  the  opposition  of  the  liidia  Office.  The  time 
has,  happily,  passed  in  which  it  was  necessary  to  defend  tlie  views  of 
Lord  Lawrence  on  these  questions.  It  was  a  fortunate  thing  for  India 
that  she  obtained,  at  that  critical  time,  a  Viceroy  who  could  resist  the 
clamour  which  so  seriously  threatened  the  most  important  of  all  her 
material  interests,  her  agricultural  industry.  It  is,  unhappily,  true  that 
very  much  remains  to  be  done.  Nothing,  for  instance,  could  well  be  more 
lamentable  than  the  condition  to  which  the  application  of  wrong  princi- 
ples, under  the  'permanent  settlement'  made  in  the  last  century,  has 
reduced  the  agricultural  classes  in  some  parts  of  Bengal.  When  Lord 
Lawrence  was  Viceroy,  it  would  have  been  utterly  hopeless  to  have  at- 
tempted to  deal  with  that  great  and  most  serious  question,  which  is 
infallibly  destined  before  long  to  assume  much  larger  dimensions.  But 
he  never  concealed  his  opinions  regarding  it,  and  it  was,  in  a  great  de- 
gree, owing  to  this  cause  that  such  bitter  hostility  was  persistently  mani- 
fested towards  him  in  Calcutta  by  the  representatives  of  the  rich  zemindars 
of  Bengal. 

It  was  not  the  tenants  and  cultivators  of  land  alone  among  the  hum- 
bler classes  whose  interest  he  had  at  heart.  He  showed  this  by  his 
constant  desire  to  make  taxation  more  equitable.  The  conviction  that 
the  poor  were  unduly  weighted,  and  that  the  richer  classes  did  not  bear 
their  just  share  of  the  public  burdens,  led  him,  in  spite  of  never-ending 
opposition,  which  proved  sometimes  to  be  too  strong  to  be  successfully 
resisted,  to  maintain  the  necessity  and  propriety  of  making  an  income 
tax  a  permanent  part  of  the  Indian  fiscal  system. 

He  never  (I  am  quoting  from  the  book  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred') while  he  was  in  India,  or  after  he  left  it,  wavered  in  his  opinion 
on  this  subject.  No  man  knew  India  better  than  he,  and  never  was  there 
a  man  v/ho  would  have  more  strongly  or  indignantly  refused  his  consent 
to  measures  which  he  thought  must  entail  injustice  and  oppression  on 
the  people.  He  believed  that  there  are  some  classes  of  the  community 
which  have  borne  no  proper  part  of  the  public  burdens,  although  no 
classes  are  better  able  to  bear  their  share  ;  that  it  is  by  direct  taxation 
alone  that  they  can  be  reached  ;  and  that,  with  reasonably  good  admin- 
istration, which  it  is  certainly  within  our  power  to  secure,  there  is  no 
necessity  whatever  for  any  gross  abuses  in  the  assessment  and  collection 
of  taxes  of  this  kind,  particularly  if  a  high  minimum  of  taxable  income 
l)e  adopted.  On  the  very  last  occasion  on  which  I  saw  Lord  Lawrence, 
he  spoke  to  me  to  this  effect :  '  Temptations  are  never  wanting  in  India 
for  Governments  to  earn  for  themselves  an  easy  and  apparent  popularity 
by  a  refusal  to  impose  taxes  on  the  richer  and  more  influential  classes  of 
the  community  ;  and  while  these,  the  only  audible  critics,  approve,  it 
will  never  be  difficult  to  find  acceptable  means  for  a  course  essentially 
impolitic  and  unjust.     Statesmen  should  never  forget  that  the  real  foun- 

'   See  above,  pp.  470-472. 


494  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

datinns  of  our  power  in  India  do  not  rest  on  the  interested  approval  of 
the  noisy  few.  They  rest  on  justice,  on  the  contentment  of  the  millions 
who  may  not  always  be  silent  and  quiescent,  and  on  their  feeling  that  in 
spite  of  the  selfish  clamour  of  those  who  profess  to  be  their  guardians 
and  representatives,  they  may  place  implicit  trust  in  the  equal  justice  of 
our  Government,  and  in  its  watchful  care  of  the  interests  of  the  masses 
of  the  ])eople.  The  exemption  of  the  richer  classes  from  taxation  is  a 
political  mistake,  which,  as  time  goes  on,  and  knowledge  and  intelligence 
increase,  must  become  more  and  more  mischievous.' 

These  were  the  opinions  of  Lord  Lawrence,  and  it  is  still  necessary  to 
insist  upon  tiieir  truth  ;  for  the  demand  of  the  most  influential  classes 
in  India  that  they  shall  virtually  be  excused  from  all  taxation  is  as  strong 
as  ever.  What  I  have  now  said  illustrates  some  of  the  reasons  for  which 
Lord  Lawrence  did  not  obtain  in  India  what  is  ordinarily,  but  most  in- 
accurately, called  popularity. 

He  obtained  something  much  better.  No  Englishman  was  ever  more 
honoured  and  respected,  especially  among  the  nobler  races  of  Northern 
India.  The  man  that  Orientals  honour  and  respect  is  the  man  wdiom 
they  feel  to  be  their  strong  and  just  master.  On  his  part,  nothing  could 
exceed  the  affectionate  regard  which  he  felt  towards  the  people  of  India 
generally,  and,  in  particular  towards  the  free  and  manly  people  of  his 
old  Province.  When  he  became  Viceroy  the  feelings  of  violent  animosity 
engendered  in  the  minds  of  Englishmen  by  the  atrocities  of  1857  had,  by 
no  means,  subsided,  and  it  was  fortunate  for  India  that  she  then  obtained 
for  her  ruler  a  man  far  above  such  influences,  and  full  of  kindly  sympa- 
thy with  her  people. 

There  remains  the  all-important  question  of  external  policy, 
which  has,  in  the  popular  imagination,  come  to  be  identified  almost 
exclusively  with  the  name  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  though  nothing 
can  be  more  certain  than  that  it  is  the  policy  which  has  been  con- 
stantly pursued  with  more  or  less  insight,  and  with  more  or  less 
success,  by  every  chief  ruler  of  India,  from  the  close  of  the  ill- 
starred  Governor-Generalship  of  Lord  Auckland,  down  to  the  be- 
ginning of  the  equally  ill-starred  Viceroyalty  of  Lord  Lytton.  The 
policy,  indeed,  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  differed  from  that  of  the 
Viceroys  who  preceded  or  followed  him,  only  or  chiefly,  in  the  vast 
personal  knowledge  on  which  it  was  based.  He  possessed  a  knowl- 
edge, such  as  no  other  Viceroy  could  claim,  of  the  physical  features 
of  the  countries  concerned,  of  the  frontier  line  itself,  of  the  apti- 
tudes and  characteristics  of  all  the  races  who  dwelt  on  each  side  of 
it;  an  acquaintance,  in  fact,  at  first,  hand,  with  all  the  conditions 
of  the  problem,  physical  and  strategic,  historical,  political,  and 
moral.  He  was,  therefore,  able  to  speak  with  greater  authority  on 
the  subject,  and  was  better  armed  at  all  points  to  resist  the  pressure 


1864-69       TENANT    RIGHT    AND    FOREIGN    POLICY.  495 

certain  to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  him  by  dashing  soldiers  and  by 
adventurous  politicians,  who  were  all  eagerness  for  the  abandonment 
of  a  policy  which,  eschewing  aggression  and  conquest,  and  holding 
that  our  responsibilities  were  already  vast  enough,  regarded  the 
good  government  and  security  of  India  itself  as  the  first  and  suf- 
ficient object  of  an  Indian  statesman. 

The  policy  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  has  been  called  by  one  of  its 
chief  literary  advocates  a  policy  of  '  masterly  inactivity.''  It  is  a 
term  not  free  from  objection,  for  it  does  not  bring  out  that  knowl- 
edge and  that  watchfulness  which  were  of  its  very  essence.  It  has, 
therefore,  teen  eagerly  caught  up  by  opponents  who  have  fancied 
that  the  name  itself  furnishes  them  with  an  argument  against  the 
policy  which  it  indicates.  But  I  am  not  aware  that  it  is  more  mis- 
leading than  such  short  characterisations  usually  are.  Sir  John 
Lawrence's  foreign  policy  was  a  policy  of  self-reliance  and  of  self- 
restraint,  of  defence  not  defiance,  of  waiting  and  of  watching,  that 
he  might  be  able  to  strike  the  harder  and  in  the  right  direction,  if 
the  time  for  aggressive  action  should  ever  come.  In  a  word,  it  was 
a  policy  of  peaceful  progress  at  home,  and  of  non-interference  in 
the  internal  affairs  of  our  neighbours,  more  particularly  of  that  con- 
geries of  wild  tribes  along  the  North-Western  border  of  six  hundred 
miles,  who,  inhabiting  a  country  of  rock,  and  mountain,  and  torrent 
as  savage  as  themselves,  happily,  still  separate  us  from  the  giant 
form  of  Russia. 

Thirty  years  ago  many  hundred  miles  of  steppe  and  desert  still 
intervened  between  the  Russian  outposts  on  the  Caspian  and  those 
of  Afghanistan  on  the  Oxus.  To-day,  the  Lower  Oxus  has  be- 
come a  Russian  stream,  which  is  traversed  by  Russian  steamers. 
The  three  independent  Khanates  of  Khiva,  Bokhara,  and  Kho- 
kand  have,  for  good  or  evil,  been  licked  up  by  the  advance  of  the 
Russian  colossus,  as  the  ox  licketh  up  the  grass  of  the  field.  Per- 
sia is  a  puppet  in  the  hand  of  Russia,  and  must  do  her  bidding. 
The  wild  Turcomans  of  the  steppes,  never  before  subdued  by  man, 
have  yielded  their  submission.  The  oasis  of  Mcrv  is  threatened  ; 
and  from  Mcrv,  as  we  have  been  often  told,  there  is  a  compara- 
tively rich  river  valley  leading  to  Herat.  It  is  the  Russian  factor, 
therefore,  rather  than  the  Afghan,  which  has,  from  the  beginning, 
given  a  vivid  and  ever-increasing  interest  to  the  Central  Asian 
question.  It  was  the  Russian  factor  which  led  us,  more  than  thirty 
years  ago,  into,  perhaps,  the  greatest  crime  and  greatest  folly  we 

'  The  late  J.  W.  Wyllic. 


496  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

have  ever  committed  as  a  nation — the  first  Afghan  War.  It  is  the 
Russian  factor  which  may  now  pride  itself  on  having  drawn  us, 
with  our  eyes  open,  into  a  repetition  of  the  same  folly  and  the 
same  crime,  the  second  Afghan  War. 

Mow  was  this  great  fact,  or  great  danger,  of  the  gradual  advance 
of  Russia  towards  our  Indian  frontier  to  be  met  ?  That  it  is,  or 
may  be,  a  real  danger,  no  one  who  has  seriously  studied  the  sub- 
ject will  deny.  Two  very  different  answers  have  been  given  to  the 
question  ;  the  one  by  what  is  called  the  Scinde,  the  other  by  the 
Punjab  school  of  frontier  policy. 

The  Scinde  school  looks  back  to  General  John  Jacob,  a  man  of 
great  vigour  and  commanding  personal  qualities,  as  its  founder, 
and  it  numbers  among  its  advocates  men  as  distinguished  for  their 
knowledge,  their  ability,  or  their  enterprise,  as  are  Sir  Henry  Raw- 
linson,  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  Sir  Henry  Green,  Sir  Lewis  Pelly,  Sir  George 
Birdwood,  and  Sir  William  Merewether.  These  authorities  have, 
for  many  years  past,  more  or  less  consistently  advocated,  as  the  best 
means  of  anticipating  an  invasion  of  India,  the  military  occupation 
first  of  Quetta,  in  Beloochistan,  and  then,  as  our  own  convenience 
may  dictate,  of  Candahar  and  Herat.  They  have  also,  some  at 
least  of  them,  been  anxious  to  extend  English  influence  over  other 
parts  of  Afghanistan,  by  stationing  English  envoys  or  Residents  in 
its  chief  cities  ;  by  sending  English  officers  to  drill  its  armies  ;  and 
by  supporting,  with  our  arts  or  with  our  arms,  this  or  that  periodi- 
cal pretender  to  the  blood-stained  honour  of  the  Afghan  crown. 

The  Punjab  school,  with  Sir  John  Lawrence  at  its  head,  and 
supported  by  successive  Secretaries  of  State  and  successive  Gov- 
ernors-General, as  well  as  by  some  of  the  most  splendid  soldier-states- 
men whom  India  has  produced,  have  held  wholly  different  views. 
They  hold  that  to  take  any  one  of  the  steps  advocated  by  the  Scinde 
authorities  is  to  go  half-way  to  meet  the  dangers  which  we  profess 
to  fear  ;  that  it  is  to  arouse  the  suspicion,  the  alarm,  and  the  hatred 
of  a  fickle  and  a  faithless,  a  fierce  and  a  fanatical,  but,  at  the  same 
time,  a  brave  and  patriotic  people,  a  people  whom  we  have  already 
deeply  wronged,  a  people  who,  whatever  their  faults,  are  passion- 
ately attached  to  their  freedom  and  their  homes,  and  hate,  as  they 
have  too  good  reason  to  do,  the  sight  of  any  foreigner  and,  not  least, 
it  is  sad  to  say  it,  of  any  Englishman  among  them  ;  that  it  is  to  en- 
courage those  aggressive  instincts  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  which 
are,  already,  quite  strong  enough,  and  which  need  all  the  tact  and 
the  talent,  the  firm  will  and  the  clear  insight  of  their  responsible 
rulers  to  keep  them  under  control  ;  that  it  is  to  draw  us  away  from 


1864-69       TENANT    RIGHT    AND    FOREIGN    POLICY.  497 

our  natural  frontier  of  an  almost  impassable  river,  and  then  of 
mountain  wall  piled  behind  mountain  wall,  a  frontier  where  our 
resources  are  close  at  hand,  and  the  population  is  at  least  relatively 
friendly,  to  a  frontier  which  will  be  everywhere  and  yet  nowhere,  a 
will-o'-the-wisp  which,  when  it  has  lured  us  to  an  indefinite  distance 
from  our  base,  will  leave  us  to  fight  our  battles  so  much  the  nearer 
to  our  enemies,  and  with  a  population  in  our  rear  and  at  our  flanks, 
who  will  rob  a  victory  of  half  its  fruits,  and  will  turn  a  defeat  into 
our  utter  ruin  ;  that  it  is  to  guard  against  a  future  and  contingent 
danger  by  neglecting  those  which  lie  beneath  our  feet  ;  that  it  is  to 
concentrate  the  attention  of  English  and  Indian  statesmen  on  mat- 
ters over  which  they  can  exercise  little  appreciable  influence  ;  that 
it  is  to  make  the  imperial  policy  of  India  depend  upon  the  flight 
of  a  random  bullet  or  the  dagger  of  a  paradise-seeking  Ghazi  ; 
that  it  is  to  employ  our  Indian  army  on  a  service  which  they  hate, 
and  so  to  increase  the  difficulties  of  the  recruiting  officer,  which 
are  already  formidable  enough  ;  finally,  that  it  is  to  throw  away 
crores  of  rupees  on  barren  mountain  ridges  and  ever-vanishing 
frontier  lines,  while  every  rupee  is  sorely  needed  by  a  Government 
which  can  hardly  pay  its  way  and  by  a  vast  population  which,  liv- 
ing on  little  more  than  starvation  rates,  cries  aloud  to  be  saved 
from  the  tax-gatherer,  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  actual  starvation, 
on  the  other.  Each  one  of  these  propositions  is  capable  of  an 
amount  of  proof  which  to  many  minds  seems  almost  demonstra- 
tive ;  each  supports,  and  yet  each  is  independent  of  all  the  others  ; 
and  the  whole  have  carried  conviction  to  successive  generations  of 
enlightened  and  patriotic  Indian  statesmen. 

And  what  have  been  the  practical  maxims  in  dealing  with  the 
Afghans  which  have  been  the  outcome  of  this  policy,  and  which 
guided  Sir  John  Lawrence  throughout  his  career  as  Chief  Com- 
missioner and  as  Governor-General  ?  Convince  the  Afghans, — so 
he  says  in  a  hundred  different  shapes  in  letters  which  lie  before 
me  and  which  extend  over  a  space  of  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century, — that  we  do  not  covet  and  will  not  take  a  foot  either  of 
their  few  fertile  valleys  or  of  their  thousand  barren  hills  ;  that  we 
will  never  attempt  to  force  an  English  envoy  or  Resident  upon 
them,  for  we  recognise  that,  in  their  present  state  of  civilisation, 
the  instinct  which  makes  them  shrink  from  his  presence,  is  a  sound 
instinct,  an  instinct  of  self-preservation  ;  that  we  do  not  wish,  nay 
that  we  are  not  willing,  to  interfere  otherwise  than  by  advice  and 
by  example  with  their  religion,  their  blood  feuds,  their  fratricidal 
contests,  their  ancestral  customs  ;  that  the  ruler  chosen  by  them 
VOL.  II. — 32 


498  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

we  will  always  recognise  for  what  he  is,  the  de  facto  ruler  of  the 
country  ;  that  when  he  is  once  firmly  established  on  the  throne  we 
may  be  willing  to  aid  him,  from  time  to  time,  by  presents  of  money, 
or  muskets,  cannon  or  ammunition,  by  such  presents,  in  short,  as 
one  friend  may  give  to  another,  but  that  we  will  never  help  him,  by 
force  of  arms,  to  win  his  throne  or  to  recover  it,  if  by  his  own 
weakness  or  his  own  misconduct,  he  may  have  lost  it  ;  that  we  will 
make  no  entangling  alliances  with  them,  which  would  be  one- sided 
at  the  very  best,  for  while  we  should  feel  bound  to  perform  our 
part  of  the  contract,  we  know  that  they  would  feel  bound  to  do 
nothing  of  the  kind  ;  that  our  one  wish — even  if  our  immediate 
interests  may  sometimes  seem  to  point  in  an  opposite  direction — 
is  that  the  country  may  be  strong,  united,  prosperous  and  friendly  ; 
that,  as  it  is  our  firm  resolve  not  to  interfere  with  them,  so  we 
expect  that  they  will  not  interfere  with  us  ;  and,  in  view  of  the 
overwhelming  interests  entrusted  to  us  in  India,  we  claim  the  right, 
as  we  have  the  power,  to  forbid  any  other  foreign  state,  above  all  a 
state  so  unscrupulous  as  Russia,  to  interfere  directly  or  indirectly, 
by  embassies  or  by  intrigues,  by  treaties  or  by  arms,  in  a  state  which 
is  conterminous  with  our  dominions.  If  Russia  does  so  interfere 
with  Afghanistan,  the  Afghans  will  be  ready  enough  to  appeal  to 
us  for  aid,  and  w^e  will  then  enter  their  country,  not  as  their  ene- 
mies but  as  their  allies.  And  when  we  have  done  our  work,  we 
will  retire  again,  appropriating  nothing  and  seeking  to  appropriate 
nothing  to  ourselves,  within  our  own  frontiers. 

Here  was  a  policy  which  was,  at  least,  manly,  straightforward, 
unaggressive  ;  which  was  founded  on  an  unequalled  knowledge  of 
the  subject,  and  which,  whether  it  was  right  or  wrong,  was  laid 
down  with  express  reference  to  the  advance  of  the  Russians,  who 
sooner  or  later,  and,  probably,  sooner  than  later,  would  find  them- 
selves on  the  Oxus  and  the  Hindu  Kush.  If  therefore  this  policy 
was  right  and  wise  in  1854,  when  the  idea  of  the  occupation  of 
Quetta  was  first  started  by  John  Jacob,  it  was  also  right,  mutatis 
mutandis,  in  1866,  when  the  project  was  revived  by  Sir  Henry 
Green  and  Sir  Bartle  Frere.  It  was  right  and  wise  in  1874,  when 
Sir  Bartle  Frere,  then  a  member  of  the  Indian  Council  at  home, 
wrote  his  famous  letter  to  Sir  John  Kaye,  which  has  done  half  the 
mischief;  and,  finally,  it  was  right  and  wise  in  1878,  when  Sir  John 
Lawrence  lifted  up  his  voice,  for  the  last  time,  against — what  was 
then  unhappily  already  a  foregone  conclusion — a  war  which  he  felt  to 
be  unnecessary  and  unjust,  which  he  knew  to  be  fatal  to  its  avowed 
object  and  prejudicial  to  the  highest  interests  of  our  Indian  Empire. 


1864-69      TENANT   RIGHT   AND  FOREIGN    POLICY.  499 

It  only  remains  for  me  in  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  to  show 
briefly  the  steps  which  Sir  John  Lawrence  took  to  carry  out  the 
policy  which  he  had  adopted,  and  its  results  as  regards  the  rela- 
tions of  the  two  powers,  when  he  laid  down  his  office  in  the  begin- 
ning of  1869. 

Dost  Mohammed,  the  able,  and,  as  Afghan  notions  go,  the  up- 
right ruler  of  Afghanistan,  and  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men 
whom  Central  Asia  has  produced,  died  at  Herat  in  June  1863,  a 
few  months,  that  is,  before  Sir  John  Lawrence  came  out  as  Viceroy. 
His  life  had  been  a  life  of  adventure  and  romance  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave.  His  father  was  an  Afghan  of  the  famous  Barukzye 
clan,  who  had  risen,  by  his  ability,  to  be  the  Wuzir  of  the  then  recog- 
nised Suddozye  sovereign.  His  mother  was  a  despised  Kuzzilbash. 
At  the  very  youthful  age  of  fourteen  he  had  taken  Herat,  that  apple 
of  discord  of  Central  Asia  ;  and  curiously  enough,  his  very  last  ex- 
ploit when  he  was  over  seventy-five  years  of  age,  had  been  to  march 
from  Cabul  and  take  it  again. 

A  te  principium,  tibi  desinet. 

By  the  usual  Afghan  combination  of  reckless  daring  and  treach- 
erous assassination,  he  managed  to  drive  the  Suddozyes  from  the 
throne  of  their  ancestors  and,  in  his  own  person,  to  establish  that  of 
the  Barukzyes  in  their  place.  He  invented  and  appropriated  to 
himself  the  now  famous  title  of  '  Ameer  al  Mominan,'  or  Commander 
of  the  Faithful,  welded  the  scattered  and  independent  fragments 
of  the  Dourani  Empire  into  one  compact  whole,  made  an  unsuccess- 
ful dash  upon  Peshawur,  which,  with  Kashmere,  had  been  torn  from 
the  Afghan  Empire  by  Runjeet  Singh,  and,  for  nearly  forty  years, 
ruled  Afghanistan  with  prudence,  justice,  and  moderation.  '  Is  Dost 
Mohammed  dead  that  there  is  no  justice  ? '  was  a  proverb  common 
throughout  his  dominions  during  the  whole  of  those  forty  years. 
No  nobler,  epitaph  could  be  written  upon  the  tomb  of  an  Afghan 
prince. 

This  was  the  man  whom,  in  a  moment  of  temporary  insanity,  at 
the  cost  of  twenty  millions  of  money  and  the  terrible  massacre  and 
humiliation  of  our  armies,  we  had  driven  from  his  throne,  and  then 
had  been  driven  to  place  him  on  it  again  when  we  could  find  no  one 
else — least  of  all  Shah  Soojah,  the  miserable  puppet  of  our  choice 
— who  could  win  and  hold  that  perilous  honour.  Once,  and  only 
once,  during  the  Sikh  war,  had  Dost  Mohammed  endeavoured  to 
take  his  revenge  upon  us.  From  that  time  forward,  thanks  to  the 
just  and  strong  frontier  policy  pursued  by  Sir  John  Lan-rence,  he 


500  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1S64-69 

had  shown  us  no  ill  will.  In  two  treaties  concluded  with  us  in  1855 
and  1856,  he  had  bound  himself  to  be  '  the  friend  of  our  friends  and 
the  enemy  of  our  enemies.'  He  had  received  subsidies  from  us  to 
aid  him  in  his  reconquest  of  Herat,  and  then  he  had  remained 
staunch  to  us  throughout  the  crisis  of  the  Indian  Mutiny,  when 
every  other  Afghan  was  straining,  like  a  hound  within  his  leashes, 
to  be  let  loose  on  the  apparently  defenceless  quarry.  Living  to  such 
an  advanced  age,  Dost  Mohammed  would  not  have  been  an  Asiatic 
if  he  had  not  married  many  wives  and  left  behind  him  many  sons. 
He  would  not  have  been  an  Afghan,  if  those  sons,  who  had  been 
barely  kept  from  flying  at  one  another's  throats  during  their 
father's  lifetime  by  the  respect  which  they  all  felt  for  him,  had  not 
prepared  to  make  up  for  lost  time  now  that  he  was  gone.  Dost 
Mohammed  had  always  foreseen  that  a  fierce  scramble  for  empire 
would  inevitably  take  place  at  his  death,  and  had  advised  Sir  John 
Lawrence  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  '  Leave  us  and  our  country 
alone,'  he  said  to  him  in  one  of  their  interviews  at  Jumrood,  '  we 
are  poor  in  everything  but  stones  and  men.'  '  Never  talk  of  send- 
ing a  Resident  to  Cabul,'  was  another  of  his  bits  of  advice,  *  for  if  I 
myself  could  not  ensure  his  safety,  much  less  will  those  who  come 
after  me.'     Golden  words  which  fell  on  wise  and  willing  ears  ! 

Passing  over  the  claims  of  his  two  eldest  sons,  Mohammed 
Afzul  and  Mohammed  Azim  Khan,  who  were  full  brothers,  the 
Dost  had  named  as  his  successor,  Shere  Ali,  his  third  son  by  another 
wife.  He  was  within  his  right  in  so  doing.  But  such  a  choice — 
even  though  it  were  the  choice  of  Dost  Mohammed — was  seldom 
binding  on  the  consciences  of  the  rest  of  the  royal  family  ;  much 
less  on  that  of  the  Afghans  at  large.  He  left  sixteen  surviving  sons, 
and  of  these  three  were  prepared  to  aim  directly  at  the  crown,  while 
several  of  the  others  were  bent  on  making  themselves  the  independ- 
ent rulers  of  their  respective  provinces.  Here  then  was  a  grand 
opportunity — as  some  people  in  India  thought — for  Sir  John  Law- 
rence to  throw  his  own  sword  into  the  scale,  to  make  one  scrambler 
the  more  in  the  general  meie'e,  and  to  get  something  for  England  out 
of  it ;  a  grand  opportunity,  as  Sir  John  Lawrence  himself  thought,  and 
thought  rightly,  for  holding  entirely  aloof,  for  showing  that  we  had 
no  selfish  or  aggressive  aims,  and  for  allowing  the  Afghans  to  settle 
their  own  quarrels  in  their  own  way.  Had  he  been  less  firm,  we 
should  either  have  been  involved,  during  the  whole  of  his  Vice- 
royalty,  in  the  tangled  web  of  Afghan  blood  feuds  ;  or,  had  we  suc- 
ceeded in  putting  our  own  candidate  at  once  upon  the  throne,  the 
mere  fact  that  we  had  done  so  would  have  gone  far  to  ensure  a 


1864-69  TENANT    RIGHT    AND    FOREIGN    POLICY.         50I 

rising  against  him  as  soon  as  we  retired  from  the  capital,  and  then 
the  bloody  process  of  natural  selection,  with  or  without  our  aid, 
would  have  had  to  be  gone  through  all  over  again. 

It  would  be  impossible,  within  the  space  at  my  disposal,  and  it 
would  be  useless,  even  if  it  were  possible,  to  follow  the  vicissitudes 
of  the  fraternal  conflict,  which  ended,  and  it  may  be  hoped,  even 
in  Afghanistan,  generally  ends,  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  For 
nearly  five  years,  during  nearly  the  whole,  that  is,  of  Sir  John  Law- 
rence's Viceroyalty,  the  contest  raged.  There  were  the  usual  kalei- 
doscopic shiftings  of  scene  and  of  the  chief  actors  on  it  ;  exile  and 
the  battle-field,  the  throne  and  the  durbar,  the  prison  and  the  grave. 
There  were  the  usual  number  of  oaths  sworn  on  the  Koran,  and 
sworn  only  to  be  broken  ;  of  reconciliations  ending  in  more  deadly 
hate  ;  of  treacherous  assassinations  ;  of  wholesale  massacres.  One 
month,  Afzul  Khan  was  languishing  in  a  dungeon  at  Khelat-i- 
Ghilzai.  The  next,  he  was  on  the  throne  in  Cabul,  importuning 
Sir  John  Lawrence  to  recognise  him  as  Ameer.  One  month,  Azim 
Khan  was  in  exile,  a  pensioner  on  Sir  John  Lawrence's  bounty  at 
Rawul  Pindi.  The  next,  he  was  at  the  head  of  an  anny  in  the 
field.  Anon  he  was  ruling  Cabul  in  his  brother  Afzul's  name,  and 
then,  when  Afzul  died,  he  became,  from  October  1867  to  August 
1868,  the  chief  ruler  of  the  whole  country. 

But  what  of  Shere  Ali,  the  de  jure  Ameer,  if  such  a  term  may 
be  used  at  all  of  one  who  has  not  yet  proved  that  he  has  the  only 
right  which  the  Afghans  ever  recognise,  the  right  of  superior  might  ? 
His  fortunes  were  more  chequered  still.  He  had  been  recognised 
by  Sir  William  Denison  as  the  successor  of  his  father,  just  before 
Sir  John  Lawrence  landed.  But  he  was  hardly  seated  upon  the 
throne  when  he  found  that  he  had  to  fight  for  it.  Four  rival  claim- 
ants started  up,  and  just  after  he  had  apparently  succeeded,  at  the 
end  of  the  first  two  years  of  his  reign  (1865),  in  beating  them  off, 
they  rose  again  in  greater  strength  ;  and,  this  time,  it  was  his  turn 
to  lose.  He  was  driven  first  from  Balkh,  then  from  Cabul,  then  from 
Candahar,  and,  at  last,  he  took  refuge  in  Herat,  the  only  corner  of 
Afghanistan  in  which  he  could  keep  a  precarious  foothold,  and  was 
obliged  to  look  on  while  his  two  elder  brothers  occupied  his  throne 
in  succession. 

Yet  he  never  gave  up  the  contest.  He  was,  in  truth,  a  remark- 
able man,  this  son  of  Dost  Mohammed,  and  was  destined  to  fill  a 
large  place  in  the  fortunes  of  Central  Asia  during  the  next  fifteen 
years.  Fie  was,  if  I  may  so  call  him,  the  Saul  of  Afghan  history. 
He  was  a  Saul  in  his  commanding  aspect,  in  his  generous  impulses. 


502  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

in  his  warm  affections,  in  his  brooding  melancholy,  in  his  mad 
jealousy,  in  his  outbursts  of  ferocity  against  those  whom  he  loved 
most  dearly,  finally,  in  that  ineffable  dignity,  which  a  long  train  of 
calamities  that  are  only  half-merited,  seldom  fails  to  confer  upon 
a  man  who  has  aught  that  is  noble  in  his  character  or  antecedents. 
Shere  Ali  was,  in  short,  one  of  those  mixed  characters,  half  noble 
and  half  '  passion  ravaged,'  whom  the  great  Greek  philosopher  pro- 
nounced to  be  the  proper  subject  for  tragedy.  He  had  given  a 
kiss  of  peace  to  his  half-brother  Afzul  Khan,  had  sworn  fidelity  to 
him  on  the  Koran,  and  then,  for  a  fancied  offence  of  Afzul's  son, 
Abdurrahman — the  very  man  whom,  in  the  strange  whirligig  of 
fortune,  we  have  just  placed  on  a  precarious  throne,  a  pensioner  of 
Russia  to  oppose  Russian  ambition,  he  ordered  him,  in  public  Dur- 
bar, to  be  thrown  into  chains.  In  the  battle  which  followed,  he  was 
doomed  to  see  his  own  full  brother  fall  by  the  hands  of  the  son 
whom  he  idolised,  and  that  same  idolised  son  fall,  at  the  same  mo- 
ment, by  the  hand  of  his  brother  ;  and,  as  he  touchingly  said  in  his 
despatch,  '  all  the  joys  of  the  victory  were  clouded  by  his  loss.'  For 
several  months  thereafter  he  shut  himself  up  in  an  inner  chamber 
at  Candahar,  refusing,  like  Saul's  great  rival  of  old,  to  be  comforted. 
He  declined  to  see  anyone  but  a  few  personal  attendants,  now  burst- 
ing out  into  paroxysms  of  fury  against  friend  and  foe  alike  ;  now 
talking  of  a  pilgrimage  to  Mecca ;  and,  now  again,  in  the  wild  frenzy 
of  his  grief,  plunging,  at  midnight,  into  a  tank  of  water  and  grovel- 
ling along  the  bottom  in  the  hope  that  he  might  there  find  the 
body  of  his  lost  darling.  '  O  my  son  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son  Ab- 
salom !  would  God  I  had  died  for  thee,  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my 


son 


Better  known,  perhaps,  but  not  more  deserving  to  be  known,  are 
the  stories  of  his  wild  grief,  years  afterwards,  over  the  death  of  his 
Benjamin,  the  son  of  his  old  age,  Abdulla  Jan  ;  of  his  romantic 
admiration  for  Lord  Mayo,  his  fervent  declaration  that  he  would 
wield  the  sword  which  Lord  Mayo  had  given  him  against  the 
enemies  of  England  everywhere  ;  his  pathetic  letter  upon  Lord 
Mayo's  death  ;  his  moving  appeal,  some  years  afterwards,  to  those 
who  had  neither  ears  to  hear  nor  hearts  to  feel,  not  to  force  upon 
him  an  English  envoy  whose  life  he  could  not  guarantee  and  whose 
presence,  as  he  too  truly  foresaw,  would  be  a  sentence  of  death  to 
him  and  to  his  country.  It  certainly  adds  a  sting  the  more  to  the 
bitter  memories  of  the  second  Afghan  war,  that  the  man  with  whom 
Ave  deliberately  picked  a  quarrel,  and  whom,  in  the  course  of  it,  we 
drove  from  his  dominions,  to  die  in  misery  and  in  exile,  was  a  man 


1864-69         TENANT    RIGHT   AND    FOREIGN    POLICY.  503 

of  the  strongly  marked  character  I  have  described — a  man  who, 
moody  and  capricious  as  he  was,  had  shown  himself  during  many 
years  to  be  anxious  for  our  friendship,  had  governed  Afghanistan 
well  according  to  his  lights,  had  regarded  Lord  Lawrence  with 
reverence,  Lord  Mayo  with  passionate  affection,  Lord  Northbrook, 
in  spite  of  some  disappointed  hopes,  without  any  feelings  of  hostil- 
ity, had  looked,  in  fact,  upon  the  word  of  each  successive  Viceroy 
as  his  bond,  and  as  the  bond  of  England,  till,  in  an  evil  moment  for 
our  fair  fame,  a  second  moment  of  temporary  insanity,  we  undid 
all  that  had  been  done,  broke  alike  the  faith  of  treaties  and  the 
promises  of  successive  Viceroys,  and  involved  ourselves  in  the  shame- 
ful reverses  and  the  costly  and  Cadmean  victories  of  one  more 
Afghan  war. 

But  fortune  was,  for  the  time  at  least,  to  smile  on  Shere  Ali. 
In  the  autumn  of  1868  he  found  himself  once  again  in  Cabul, 
Azim,  his  last  formidable  adversary,  having  been  driven  hopeless 
and  helpless  into  Balkh.  He  was  thus  once  again  the  de  facto  as 
well  as  the  de  jure  Ameer,  and  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  free  to  act 
on  the  lines  of  the  policy  which  he  had  laid  down  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  struggle,  the  policy  of  recognising  any  claimant  on  whom 
the  deliberate  choice  of  the  Afghan  people  should  fall,  and  without 
committing  himself  to  a  one-sided  alliance  which  would  be  a 
temptation  to  misgovernment,  and,  perhaps,  a  charter  for  it,  to 
give  him  such  assistance  from  time  to  time  as  one  friend  may  give 
to  another,  if  he  shows  himself  to  be  deserving  of  it.  To  every 
application  for  aid  or  for  recognition,  whether  it  had  come  from 
Shere  Ali  or  from  one  of  his  rivals,  he  had,  from  considerations  of 
humanity,  as  well  as  policy,  so  long  as  the  contest  lasted,  turned  a 
deaf  ear.  In  vain,  had  one  of  the  candidates  offered  him  as  a 
bribe  an  alliance  between  Afghanistan  and  England  against  Russia. 
In  vain,  had  another  inverted  the  proposal,  and  threatened  him 
with  an  alliance  of  Afghanistan  and  Russia  against  England.  In 
vain,  had  the  vague  and  mysterious  terrors  of  that  '  old  man  of  the 
mountain,'  the  Akhund  of  Swat,  been  held  up  before  his  eyes.  To 
have  given  aid  or  recognition,  or  to  have  shown  any  sign  of  flinch- 
ing from  the  policy  of  neutrality  which  he  had  laid  down,  would 
have  been  to  assist  in  putting  upon  the  Afghan  throne  a  man  whom, 
perchance,  the  majority  of  the  Afghans  might  already  hate,  and 
whom  assuredly,  they  would  hate  the  more,  if  we  raised  a  finger  to 
help  in  placing  him  there. 

In  reply  to  one  such  application  from  Afzul  Khan,  Sir  John 
Lawrence  says  : — 


504  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

My  friend,  the  relations  of  this  Government  are  with  the  actual  rulers 
of  Afjjhanistan.  If  your  Highness  is  able  to  consolidate  your  Highness's 
power  in  Cabul,  and  is  sincerely  desirous  of  being  a  friend  and  ally  of 
the  British  Government,  I  shall  be  ready  to  accept  your  Highness  as 
such.  But  I  cannot  break  the  existing  engagements  with  Ameer  Shere 
AJi  Kahn,  and  I  must  continue  to  treat  him  as  the  ruler  of  that  portion 
of  Afghanistan  over  which  he  retains  control.  Sincerity  and  fair  dealing 
induce  me  to  write  thus  plainly  and  openly  to  your  Highness. 

But  now  the  case  was  altered.  With  the  full  approval  of  the 
Conservative  Government  at  home,  who,  by  the  mouth  of  Sir 
Stafford  Northcote,  expressed  unlimited  confidence  in  anything 
which  Sir  John  Lawrence  should  advise  or  do,  60,000/.  were  given 
to  the  Ameer  to  help  him  in  organising  his  newly  fledged  authority, 
and  in  repairing  the  waste  which  the  long -civil  war  had  made, 
while  hopes  of  favours  to  come,  should  his  Government  prove  to 
be 'strong,  just,  and  merciful,'  confirmed  him  in  his  friendly  feel- 
ings towards  us.  A  proposal  which  originated  with  him  to  pay  a 
visit  to  the  Punjab,  and  there  hold  a  personal  conference  with  Sir 
John  Lawrence,  his  father's  friend,  was  favourably  received  ;  and 
Sir  John  lingered  on  at  Simla  longer  than  usual  in  November,  in 
order  that  he  might  gratify  the  wish.  But  this  was  not  to  be.  The 
smouldering  embers  of  disaffection  warned  Shere  Ali  not  to  leave 
Cabul  till  they  had  died  or  had  been  trampled  out ;  and  Sir  John 
Lawrence,  as  the  best  thing  which  he  could  do  for  Shere  Ali  him- 
self, for  his  own  successor  in  the  Viceroyalty,  and  for  the  future  of 
both  countries,  determined  to  leave  behind  him  on  record  a  state- 
ment of  the  motives  which  had  guided  and  of  the  principles  which 
he  hoped  might  still  guide  our  relations  with  Afghanistan.  No 
more  valuable  testamentary  bequest  could  he  have  bequeathed, 
and  its  immediate  and  legitimate  result,  nothing  more  and  nothing 
less,  was  the  famous  Umballa  Durbar  held  in  the  March  following 
by  his  successor,  when  Shere  Ali,  though  many  of  his  requests 
were  necessarily  refused  by  Lord  Mayo,  went  away  charmed  with 
his  reception,  swearing,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  that  he  would 
wield  the  sword  which  had  been  given  him,  in  defence  of  England, 
and  convinced  that  he  had  nothing  to  fear  and  much  to  hope  for 
from  our  disinterested  friendship. 

The  policy  which  I  have  thus  attempted  to  sketch,  the  policy  of 
non-interference  in  Afghanistan,  coupled  with  the  wish  that  she 
should  be  strong,  independent,  and  friendly  to  us,  was,  I  would 
once  more  point  out,  not  the  policy  of  Sir  John  Lawrence  alone- 
Probably,  no  other  Viceroy  would  have  been  able  to  carry  it  out 


1864-69      TENANT   RIGHT   AND   FOREIGN    POLICY.  505 

quite  as  he  did.  No  other  Viceroy  would  have  watched  with  the 
keen  interest  and  insight  with  which  his  letters  show  that  he  watched, 
every  vicissitude  in  the  compHcated  struggle,  or  would  have  been 
so  well  able  to  avoid  all  the  traps  that  were  laid  for  him  by  the 
rival  aspirants  in  Afghanistan,  or  by  the  varied  proposals  of  Sir 
Henry  Rawlinson  and  Sir  Bartle  Frere  at  home.  But  the  policy 
itself  was  the  policy  of  many  successive  Viceroys,  and  of  a  still 
larger  number  of  successive  Secretaries  of  State,  more  particularly, 
as  I  am  able  to  prove  from  the  letters  before  me,  of  each  of  the 
five  Secretaries  of  State  who  held  office  during  Sir  John  Lawrence's 
Viceroyalty  ;  all  of  them  men  remarkable,  either  for  their  com- 
manding ability  or  for  their  parliamentary  standing,  or  for  their 
knowledge  of  Indian  administration.  Sir  Charles  Wood,  Lord  de 
Grey,  Lord  CranborAe,  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  and  the  Duke  of 
Argyll. 

Out  of  very  many  expressions  of  their  views  upon  the  subject,  I 
select  a  few  which  are  specially  characteristic  of  the  men. 

I  am  (says  Sir  Charles  Wood)  altog'ether  against  trying  to  set  up  a 
permanent  influence,  as  it  is  called,  at  Cabul. 

And  again  : — 

I  entirely  approve  of  your  conduct  as  to  the  Cabul  Ameer.  Perfect 
neutrality  and  non-interventfon  are  the  rules  I  should  act  upon  as  much 
as  you  can.  You  and  I  have  talked  this  question  over  very  often,  and 
we  quite  agreed  upon  it.  So  I  have  no  doubt  of  your  acting  entirely  in 
the  spirit  which  I  should  approve.   .   .  . 

Rawlinson  has  a  scheme  for  occupying  Herat  and  Candahar  as  a 
counteracting  move.  I  cannot  see  the  wisdom  of  his  proposals,  which 
seem  to  me  to  be  the  most  unwise  that  we  could  adopt,  extending  our- 
selves further  from  our  base,  exciting  the  jealousy  of  the  very  people — 
the  Afghans— =-on  whose  resistance  to  the  invader,  in  the  first  instance, 
we  must  rely.  I  adhere  to  our  old  doctrine  that  we  can  always  buy  the 
Afghan  alliance  when  we  want  it  if  we  keep  on  good  terms  with  them 
meanwhile. 

And  what  said  Lord  de  Grey,  now  Governor-General  of  India  : — 

I  quite  agree  with  you  that  our  policy  in  Afghanistan  should  be  to  let 
the  people  beyond  our  own  frontier  manage  their  own  concerns  so  long 
as  they  leave  us.  alone.  .  .  .  You  will  not  find  me  any  more  inclined  to 
an  aggressive  or  a  meddling  foreign  policy  than  my  predecessor.  There 
may,  of  course,  be  occasions  on  which  it  may  be  necessary  for  us  to 
interfere.  Rut  the  longer  you  can  abstain  from  interference  the  more 
shall  I  rejoice. 


506  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

Lord  Cranborne,  as  is  his  wont,  was  more  incisive  and  epigram- 
matic, and  were  I  at  liberty  in  his  case,  as  I  am  in  the  case  of  the 
other  Secretaries  of  State  who  preceded  and  followed  him,  to  quote 
the  ipsissima  dicta  of  the  letters  which  lie  in  such  rich  and  tempting 
profusion  before  me,  I  could  show  that  the  most  crushing  condemna- 
tion of  the  policy  and  projects  afterwards  pursued  by  the  Marquis 
of  Salisbury,  is  to  be  found  in  the  admirable  despatches  of  Lord 
Cranborne.  Such  letters,  if  they  may  not  be  quoted  as  historical 
documents,  at  least  form  the  materials  for  history  ;  and  I  am  at  all 
events  free  to  state,  as  the  result  of  my  study  of  them,  that  the 
writer  laughed  to  scorn  those  who  thought  that  the  approach  of 
Russia  involved  any  serious  danger  to  India,  that  he  considered 
that  a  campaign  on  the  Indus,  with  the  Caspian  as  its  nearest  effect- 
ive base,  was  altogether  beyond  the  power  of  Russia,  and  that  on 
the  question  of  the  occupation  of  Quetta,  the  particular  step  which 
was  then  and  afterwards  dearest  to  the  heart  of  the  '  Forward 
School,'  and  for  the  simple  reason,  that  they  knew  well  that,  if  this 
could  once  be  managed,  it  might  be  made,  by  skilful  manipulation, 
to  carry  all  the  rest,  an  advance  to  Candahar  and  Herat,  a  mission 
to  Cabul,  a  war,  and  the  ultimate  control  or  annexation  of  the  whole 
country — Lord  Cranborne  was  as  staunch  as  Sir  John  Lawrence 
himself  and  the  other  high  Anglo-Indian  authorities  who  saw  what 
it  involved.  Sir  Robert  Napier,  Sir  William  Mansfield,  Sir  Henry 
Norman,  Sir  Donald  Macleod,  Sir  Henry  Davies,  Sir  Harry  Lums- 
den. 

Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  Lord  Cranborne's  successor  at  the  India 
Office,  was  of  the  same  opinion  : — 

I  have  read  (he  says  to  Sir  John  Lawrence)  with  great  interest  what 
you  say  about  Afghanistan,  and  have  shown  your  letter  to  Lord  Stanley.: 
We  are  very  reluctant  to  intermeddle  in  any  way  with  these  complicated 
civil  wars,  and  hope  you  will  adhere  to  your  policy  of  entire  neutrality. 
...  I  entirely  agree  with  you  in  deprecating  the  Russophobia,  which  is 
both  undignified  and  unwise.  Happily,  the  Russophobia  in  this  country 
is  very  mild,  and  will  never  drive  you  into  action. 

Unfortunately,  the  '  Russophobia,'  not  of  Sir  Stafford  Northcote 
himself — for  he  would  appear  to  have  been  always  free  from  it — 
but  of  the  next  Ministry  of  which  he  was  to  be  a  member,  was  to 
drive  into  action  of  a  much  more  precipitate  nature  the  whole  of 
the  party  who,  with  a  large  majority  at  their  disposal,  then  swayed 
the  destinies  of  England. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  quote  a  word  from  the  Duke  of  Argyll's 
letters  or  speeches  ;  for  his  views  on  the  subject  are  too  well  known, 


1864-69      TENANT   RIGHT  AND   FOREIGN    POLICY.  507 

and  from  them,  whether  in  or  out  of  the  Ministry,  he  has  never 
swerved. 

Against  the  weight  of  experience  and  authority  which  was  thus 
arrayed  against  him,  Sir  Henry  RawHnson  could  hardly  have  hoped 
that  his  famous  Memorandum  proposing  various  measures  'to 
counteract  the  advance  of  Russia  in  Central  Asia,  and  to  strengthen 
the  influence  and  power  of  England  in  Afghanistan  and  Persia,' 
would  command  much  support  in  India.  It  had  been  duly  for- 
warded to  India  by  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  in  order  that  its  sugges- 
tions might  be  examined  and  reported  on  by  those  who  were  most 
competent  to  do  so.  And  it  was  this  circumstance,  combined  with 
the  termination  of  the  Afghan  civil  war,  which  determined  Sir  John 
Lawrence  to  leave  behind  him  as  a  legacy  to  his  successor,  and  to 
the  nation  at  large,  the  important  State  paper  to  which  I  have 
referred.  With  it  there  was  a  series  of  Minutes  written  by  those 
who  had  the  best  right  to  speak  upon  the  subject,  and  who,  starting 
from  very  different  standpoints  and  travelling  by  different  roads,  all 
arrived  at  much  the  same  general  conclusions.  These  conclusions 
were  summed  up  as  follows,  in  what  is  called  a  '  covering  despatch,' 
from  the  Foreign  Department : — 

We  object  to  any  active  interference  in  the  affairs  of  Afghanistan  by 
the  deputation  of  a  high  British  officer  with  or  without  a  contingent,  or 
by  the  forcible  or  amicable  occupation  of  any  post  or  tract  in  that  coun- 
try beyond  our  own  frontier,  inasmuch  as  we  think  such  a  measure 
would,  under  present  circumstances,  engender  irritation,  defiance,  and 
hatred  in  the  minds  of  the  Afghans,  without  in  the  least  strengthening 
our  power  either  for  attack  or  defence.  We  think  it  impolitic  and  un- 
wise to  decrease  any  of  the  difficulties  which  would  be  entailed  on  Russia 
if  that  Power  seriously  thought  of  invading  India,  as  we  should  certainly 
decrease  them  if  we  left  our  own  frontier  and  met  her  halfway  in  a  difficult 
country,  and,  possibly,  in  the  midst  of  a  hostile  or  exasperated  popula- 
tion. We  foresee  no  limits  to  the  expenditure  which  such  a  move  might 
require,  and  we  protest  against  the  necessity  of  having  to  impose  addi- 
tional taxation  on  the  people  of  India,  who  are  unwilling,  as  it  is,  to  bear 
such  pressure  for  measures  v/hich  they  can  both  understand  and  appre- 
ciate. And  we  think  that  the  objects  which  we  have  at  heart,  in  common 
with  all  interested  in  India,  may  be  attained  by  an  attitude  of  readiness 
and  firmness  on  our  frontier,  and  by  giving  all  our  care  and  expending 
all  our  resources  for  the  attainment  of  practical  and  sound  ends  over 
which  we  can  exercise  an  effective  and  immediate  control. 

Should  a  foreign  Power,  such  as  Russia,  ever  seriously  think  of  invad- 
ing India  from  without,  or,  what  is  more  prol)able,  of  stirring  up  the 
elements  of  disaffection  or  anarchy  within  it,  our  true  policy,  our  strongest 
security,  would  then,  we  conceive,  be  found  to  he  in  previous  abstinence 


5o8  LIFE    OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

from  entanglements  at  either  Cabul,  Candahar,  or  any  similar  outpost  ; 
in  lull  reliance  on  a  compact,  highly  equipped,  and  disciplined  army 
stationed  within  our  own  territories,  or  on  our  own  border  ;  in  the  con- 
tentment, if  not  in  the  attachment,  of  the  masses  ;  in  the  sense  of  security 
of  title  and  possession,  with  which  our  whole  policy  is  gradually  imbuing 
the  minds  of  the  principal  chiefs  and  the  native  aristocracy  ;  in  the  con- 
struction of  material  works  within  British  India,  which  enhance  the 
comfort  of  the  people  while  they  add  to  our  political  and  military 
strength  ;  in  husbanding  our  finances  and  consolidating  and  multiplying 
our  resources  ;  in  quiet  preparation  for  all  contingencies,  which  no  Indian 
statesman  should  disregard;  and  in  a  trust  in  the  rectitude  and  honesty 
of  our  intentions,  coupled  with  the  avoidance  of  all  sources  of  complaint 
which  either  invite  foreign  aggression  or  stir  up  restless  spirits  to  do- 
mestic revolt. 

Having  thus  given  his  views  of  what  ought  and  what  ought  not 
to  be  done,  Sir  John  Lawrence  went  on  to  make  a  suggestion  which 
he  had  thrown  out  before,  and  which  I  have  good  reason  to  beHeve 
he  would  have  carried  out  into  act,  that  efforts  should  be  made  to 
come  to  a  clear  understanding  with  Russia,  as  to  her  projects  in 
Central  Asia.  Knowing  well  that  there  were  men  in  Russia,  as 
there  have  always  been  in  British  India,  who  were  bent  on  a  policy 
of  aggression,  and  would  be  glad,  if  opportunity  offered,  to  force 
the  hand  of  their  Government  in  that  direction,  he  proposed  that 
Russia  should  be  given  to  understand  '  in  firm  but  courteous  lan- 
guage, '  that  she  should  not  be  permitted  to  interfere  in  the  affairs 
of  Afghanistan,  or  in  any  state  that  was  contiguous  to  our  frontier. 
Sir  John  Lawrence  was  not  a  man  who  would  have  failed  to  stand 
by  his  word.  When  the  Russians  began  to  show  any  intention  of 
breaking  this  understanding,  he  would,  assuredly,  have  remonstrated 
not  with  the  weak  but  with  the  strong  ;  and,  remonstrances  failing, 
he  would  have  addressed  an  ultimatum,  backed  by  the  whole  force 
of  the  empire,  not  to  the  unwilling  victims,  but  to  the  real  offenders. 
Russia  would  then  have  been  seen  to  be  the  aggressive,  Great  Britain 
the  unaggressive  Power  ;  and  the  Afghans  would,  henceforward, 
have  looked  to  us,  not  as  their  oppressors,  but  as  their  deliverers 
and  their  friends. 

The  State  paper  the  concluding  paragraphs  of  which  I  have 
quoted,  summed  up  the  recorded  opinions  of  as  able  and  as  respon- 
sible a  body  of  statesmen  and  of  soldiers  as  could  have  been  got 
together  in  support  of  any  line  of  policy  in  India.  It  was  coun- 
tersigned by  Sir  William  Mansfield,  the  Commander-in-Chief  ;  by 
Sir  Henry  Maine,  the  famous  jurist  ;  by  Sir  Richard  Temple,  who 
had  begun  to  climb  the  ladder  of  advancement  under  the  guidance 


1864-69       TENANT   RIGHT   AND   FOREIGN    POLICY.  509 

of  John  Lawrence  himself  in  the  Punjab  ;  and  by  Sir  John 
Strachey,  who  was  afterwards  to  fill  some  of  the  most  important 
posts  in  the  successive  Governments  of  Lord  Mayo,  of  Lord  North- 
brook,  and  of  Lord  Lytton.  Among  men  remarkable  for  their 
knowledge  of  the  frontier,  and  responsible,  at  one  time  or  the  other, 
for  its  safety,  who  were  known  to  be  in  agreement  with  the  princi- 
ples laid  down,  there  were  three  successive  Lieutenant-Governors  of 
the  Punjab,  Sir  Robert  Montgomery,  Sir  Donald  Macleod,  and  Sir 
Henry  Davies.  There  were  soldiers  of  great  frontier  reputation 
like  Sir  Henry  Norman,  Sir  Henry  Durand,  Sir  Harry  Lumsden, 
and  Sir  Neville  Chamberlain ;  while,  between  the  lines,  there  might 
also  have  been  read,  by  those  who  had  the  eyes  to  see  them,  the 
names  of  not  a  few  of  the  mighty  dead,  men  who  knew  the  Afghan 
frontier  as  they  knew  their  own  homes,  men  like  General  John 
Nicholson,  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  and  Sir  Henry  Lawrence. 

The  document  was  dated  January  4,  and  it  formed,  as  it  fitly 
might,  the  last  important  act  of  Sir  John  Lawrence.  His  work  in 
India  was  done.  For  five  full  years  he  had  borne  the  burden  of 
the  Viceroyalty,  a  burden  heavy  for  a  man  in  the  very  prime  of  his 
life  and  strength.  He  had  given  India  what  she  most  of  all  wanted, 
a  period  of  almost  unbroken  peace  and  progress.  He  had  fought 
a  prolonged  and  uphill  battle  against  every  kind  of  obstacle  in  de- 
fence of  those  who  could  do  least  to  defend  themselves,  and  who 
hardly  knew  that  he  Avas  defending  them.  After  protracted  efforts 
he  had  induced  the  Secretary  of  State  to  sanction  a  grand  scheme 
of  irrigation,  canals,  tanks,  and  embankments,  which  would  give  to 
the  natives  of  India  the  prime  requisite  of  life,  and,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, secure  them  against  the  most  appalling  of  visitations  ;  and 
these  great  works  he  had,  in  the  last  year  of  his  reign,  set  agoing  in 
almost  every  province  in  the  empire.  Believing,  as  he  did,  that 
irrigation  was  infinitely  more  important  for  the  immediate  wants  of 
the  country  than  railways,  he  had  yet  pushed  on  railways  so  fast 
that  not  less  than  fifteen  hundred  miles  had  been  opened  during 
his  term  of  office,  at  the  expense  of  thirty  millions  sterling.  Anxious, 
even  here,  most  of  all  for  the  good  of  the  unprotected  natives,  he 
had  managed,  by  his  personal  influence,  to  secure  protection  for 
third-class  passengers  from  the  want  of  air,  the  want  of  water,  and 
the  insults  to  which  they  had  been  hitherto  exposed  at  the  hands  of 
low-minded  officials.  He  had  re-organised  the  whole  of  the  telegraph 
department,  laying  down  2,500  miles  of  new  wire,  and  arranging 
that  messages  should  be  sent  from  one  end  of  the  empire  to  the 
other  at  the  cost  of  a  rupee.     The  son  of  one  soldier,  as  he  was 


510  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

fond  of  saying,  and  the  brother  of  several,  he  had  always  been 
anxious  for  the  interests  of  the  British  soldier  ;  and  at  seven  different 
stations  he  had  erected  splendid  blocks  of  double-storied  barracks, 
giving  him,  what  nobody,  hitherto,  had  been  able  or  had  cared  to 
give  him,  air  and  light,  reading-rooms  and  workshops,  gardens,  and 
rooms  for  prayer.  He  had  constructed  at  suitable  spots  throughout 
India  small  fortified  posts  which  might  serve  as  places  of  refuge  in 
time  of  need.  He  had  given  untiring  attention  to  the  all-important 
but  always  neglected  subject  of  sanitary  reform.  Indeed,  as  Flor- 
ence Nightingale,  with  whom  he  was  in  constant  and  confidential 
communication  throughout,  truly  remarked,  he  was  the  father  of 
sanitary  measures  in  India.  In  finance,  many  of  his  measures  had 
been  unpopular.  But  they  were  none  the  worse,  or  rather  they 
were  all  the  better  on  that  account,  for  while  he  had  always  been 
in  favour  of  a  strict  economy  of  the  public  money,  he  had  endeav- 
oured to  secure  that  the  State  burdens  should  be  laid,  as  far  as 
possible,  on  the  shoulders  of  those  who,  if  they  were  loudest  in 
their  complaints,  were  best  able  to  bear  them,  and  would  feel  them 
least.  With  this  view,  he  had  struggled  to  lower  the  tax  on  salt, 
which  was  a  necessity  of  life.  He  had  opposed  the  imposition  of 
a  tax  on  tobacco,  because  it  formed  the  one  luxury  of  the  working 
classes  ;  and  he  had  been  in  favour  of  retaining  the  income  tax,  as 
the  only  means  of  making  the  wealthy  bear  their  proper  share  of 
the  public  burdens.  He  had  been  zealous  in  the  cause  of  educa- 
tion, not  least  for  those  who  wanted  it  most,  the  helpless  and  igno- 
rant ryots  of  Bengal ;  and  when  he  left  India  he  had  the  satisfaction 
of  feeling  that  there  w^ere  not  less  than  700,000  pupils  working  in 
19,000  State-aided  schools,  and  among  them  54,000  girls.  The 
Sailors'  Home  in  Calcutta  testified  to  his  care  for  sailors,  the  new 
jails  he  built  to  his  zeal  for  jail  reform  ;  and  all  this  he  had  done, 
in  spite  of  difficulties  arising  from  weakened  health,  from  differ- 
ences of  opinion  between  himself  and  some  of  the  most  influential 
members  of  his  Council,  from  the  persistent  and  malevolent  attacks 
of  a  considerable  part  of  the  Anglo-Indian  press,  and  from  the 
prejudices  which  had  been  aroused  against  him  by  the  fact,  now 
that  he  was  a  commoner,  now  that  he  was  a  civilian,  now  that  he 
was  a  Punjabi,  and,  now  again,  that  he  -was  a  genuine  and  devout 
Christian.  '  I  am  only  a  cracked  pot,'  he  had  said,  in  a  moment  of 
despondency,  to  Sir  George  Campbell,  when  about  to  undertake  his 
new  and  vast  responsibilities.  Perhaps  he  felt  so.  But  what  man, 
we  may  well  ask,  in  the  very  prime  of  his  health  and  strength,  could 
have  done  more  unostentatious,  more  unflagging,  more  unselfish, 


1864-69         TENANT    RIGHT    AND    FOREIGN    POLICY.  51I 

more  noble,  more  lasting  work  than  he  ?  '  He  is  great,'  said  the 
editor  of  the  Friend  of  India,  a  man  ■who  had  watched  his  career 
carefully,  and  had  criticised  some  of  his  measures  unsparingly — • 
'  he  is  great  in  the  work  which  he  has  done  as  Governor-General ; 
he  is  great  in  the  moral  spirit  in  which  he  has  done  every  act ;  in 
the  lofty  principle  which  has  guided  him  ;  in  the  noble  private 
character,  which  towers  above  that  of  any  of  his  predecessors.' 

And  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  in  India  the  private  character  of 
a  public  man  is  a  more  important  element  in  estimating  his  general 
influence  even  than  it  is  in  England.  Indeed,  I  question  whether 
the  example  set  to  his  countrymen  at  large  in  this  respect  by  Sir 
John  Lawrence,  and  I  might  add,  in  their  measure,  by  all  the 
members  of  the  Lawrence  school,  is  not  among  the  most  valuable 
of  all  the  services  which  he  and  they  rendered  to  India.  Through- 
out his  life,  even  in  the  early  Delhi  and  Punjab  days,  John  Law- 
rence had  set  his  face  strongly  against  practices  which  it  is  easier  to 
understand  than  to  describe,  and  which  were  then  all  too  common 
among  our  countrymen  in  India.  No  one  whose  character  was  not 
above  suspicion  in  these  respects  could  hope  to  stand  well  with 
him,  even  in  early  times.  Still  less  could  he  have  obtained  access 
now  to  his  Viceregal  Court.  Vice  of  all  kinds  stood  abashed  in 
his  presence.  Men,  aye,  and  women  too,  '  saw  how  awful  goodness 
was.'  The  gambler,  the  profane,  the  profligate,  the  flippant,  the 
self-indulgent,  felt  that  his  court  was  no  place  for  them.  No  one 
ever  dropped  an  impure  word  or  made  an  impure  allusion  in  his 
presence.  No  one  ever  scofTed  at  religion,  whether  his  own  or 
that  of  the  natives.  No  one  ever  spoke  contemptuously  or  harshly 
of  the  natives  themselves  without  receiving  from  him  a  stern,  and 
sometimes  a  sledge-hammer  rebuke.  On  one  occasion  a  lady  who 
was  sitting  at  the  Viceregal  table  allowed  herself  to  sneer  at  the 
Bible.  Sir  John  Lawrence  looked  sternly  on  her  and  said,  with  all  his 
dignity,  but  with  more  of  sorrow  than  of  anger  in  his  words,  *  How 
can  you  speak  like  that  of  God  and  of  God's  Book  in  the  presence 
of  these  young  men  ? '  The  next  minute,  he  was  talking  with  her 
of  other  subjects  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  But  the  rebuke  had 
done  its  work  on  her  and  on  the  assembled  company.  On  another 
occasion,  a  young  officer  in  the  army,  who  was  talking,  after  the 
manner  of  his  kind,  contemptuously  of  the  natives,  hapi)ened,  in 
Sir  John's  hearing,  to  speak  of  them  as  'those  niggers.'  'I  beg 
your  pardon,'  said  Sir  John,  *  of  what  people  were  you  speaking?' 
And,  here  again,  the  rebuke  did  its  work  right  well.  Thus  the 
Viceregal  Court  was,  in  his  time  what,  happily,  it  has  been   in  the 


512  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

case  of  most  of  our  Viceroys,  and  what  the  English  Court  has  been 
throughout  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  the  centre,  so  far  as  its 
chief  occupant  could  make  it  so,  of  everything  that  was  pure, 
everything  that  was  lovely,  everything  that  was  (^  good  report  ; 
and  from  it,  as  from  a  fresh  fountain,  flowed  forth  lessons  of  purity, 
of  simplicity,  of  reverence,  of  manliness,  of  hard  work,  of  all  the 
domestic  charities,  which  were  felt  more  or  less  through  all 
ranks  of  English  society  in  India.  Would  that  it  had  always  been 
so  in  India  before  and  since  !  Would  that  it  may  always  be  so 
hereafter  !  Would  that  intelligent  and  inquiring  natives  may  never 
find  one  of  their  most  forcible  arguments  against  Christianity  in 
the  language,  in  the  actions,  in  the  policy,  in  the  surroundings  of 
its  so-called  Christian  rulers  ! 

But  now  it  was  all  over.  Lord  Mayo  was  already  on  Indian 
soil.  He  had  already  inspected  the  wonders  of  Bombay,  and  had 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  chief  Indian  administrators  there. 
He  was  now  doing  the  same  at  Madras  ;  and  in  a  few  days  he 
might  be  expected  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hooghly.  "  Lord  Mayo,' 
remarked  Sir  John  Lawrence  with  a  tinge  of  sadness,  '  is  beginning 
his  life  as  a  public  man  just  where  I  am  leaving  mine.'  He  ' 
could  not  have  anticipated,  no  one  could  then  have  anticipated, 
that  years  after  Lord  Mayo's  promise  of  a  brilliant  and  beneficent 
career  should  have  been  cut  short  by  the  dagger  of  the  assassin. 
Lord  Lawrence  would  still  be  rendering  to  his  country  true 
knightly  service,  in  the  House  of  Peers,  on  the  School  Board,  and 
by  his  letters  to  the  Times  at  home. 

On  January  11,  the  day,  that  is,  before  Lord  Mayo  was  to  arrive, 
a  farewell  dinner  was  given  to  the  departing  Viceroy  in  the  Town 
Hall  of  Calcutta.  The  guests  were  two  hundred  and  fifty  in  num- 
ber, and  formed  a  fair  representation  of  all  classes  of  the  English 
community — of  all,  in  fact,  except  a  small  portion  of  the  Calcutta 
merchants,  who  absented  themselves  on  grounds  which  were  cred- 
itable, not  to  themselves,  but  to  Sir  John  Lawrence.  The  Judges 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  members  of  the  Executive  and  Legis- 
lative Councils,  the  Lieutenant-Governors  of  Bengal,  of  the  North- 
West,  and  of  the  Punjab,  sat  in  close  proximity  to  the  chief  guest. 
Sir  William  Mansfield,  the  Commander-in-Chief,  presided,  and  in 
a  speech  which  was  worthy  of  the  occasion,  passed  under  review 
the  whole  career  of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  from  the  days  when,  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  first  Punjab  war,  he,  the  speaker,  was  marching 
with  his  regiment  to  the  scene  of  operations,  and  was  told  on  all 
hands  that  '  the  supplies  for  the  war  were  to  come  from  John  Law- 


1864-69       TENANT    RIGHT    AND  FOREIGN    POLICY.  513 

rence  ;  '  in  other  words,  that  the  plain  and  Httle  known  civiHan 
was  '  the  base  of  operations  ;'  and  so,  through  the  time  of  the 
second  Punjab  war,  the  Punjab  Board,  the  Chief  Commissioner- 
ship  of  the  Punjab,  and  the  Mutiny,  in  which,  as  he  observed,  Sir 
John  Lawrence  had  won  greatness  enough  for  any  single  man, 
right  on  to  the  Viceroyalty,  in  which,  as  he  went  on  to  observe 
with  equal  truth,  Sir  John  had  added  yet  more  to  the  lustre  of  his 
name. 

At  last.  Sir  John  Lawrence  rose  to  reply.  He  spoke  in  a  low 
and  broken  voice,  which,  more  than  once,  hesitated  from  emotion, 
and  could  be  distinctly  heard  by  those  only  who  were  near  at  hand. 
He,  too,  reviewed  his  own  career,  and  with  genuine  modesty  re- 
minded his  hearers,  that  no  small  part  of  his  success  was  due  '  to 
the  ofhcers  with  w'hom  he  had  worked,  and  to  his  countrymen  in 
India.'  Nor  did  he  forget  to  pay  a  warm  tribute  to  the  sterling 
qualities  of  the  natives  of  Upper  India,  among  whom  he  had 
laboured  for  nearly  forty  years,  those  with  whom  he  had  sympa- 
thised so  keenly,  and  had  understood  so  well.  Then,  alluding  to 
his  foreign  policy,  for  w^hich  he  had  been  so  much  attacked,  he 
declared  that  '  he  had  never  shrunk  from  war  when  honour  and 
justice  required  it,  but  pointed  out  that  to  have  continued  the  wars 
in  Bhotan  and  Huzara  after  their  purpose  had  been  answered, 
would  have  been  neither  wise  nor  merciful.'  To  the  charge  that 
he  had  followed  a  supine  and  inert  policy  in  Central  Asia  he  gave 
an  emphatic  contradiction.  '  I  have  watched,'  he  said,  '  very  care- 
fully all  that  has  gone  on  in  those  distant  countries.'  It  was  true 
that  he  had  set  his  face  against  all  projects  which  seemed  likely  to 
involve  an  active  interference  in  Central  Asia,  because  such  interfer- 
ence '  would  almost  certainly  lead  to  war,  the  end  of  which  no  one 
could  foresee,  and  which  would  involve  India  in  heavy  debt,  or 
necessitate  the  imposition  of  fresh  taxation,  to  the  impoverishment 
of  the  country,  and  the  unpopularity  of  our  rule.'  'Our  true  pol- 
icy,' he  added,  '  is  to  avoid  such  complications,  to  consolidate  our 
power  in  India,  to  give  to  its  people  the  best  government  we  can, 
to  organise  our  administration  in  every  department  on  a  system 
which  will  combine  economy  with  efficiency,  and  so  to  make  our 
Government  strong  and  respected  in  our  own  territories.'  By  so 
doing,  and  standing  fa§t  on  our  own  border,  we  should  be  best 
prepared  to  repel  invasion  if  it  should  ever  come.  And  when  as 
his  parting  counsel,  as  the  last  of  his  last  words,  he  urged  his 
countrymen  *  to  be  just  and  kind  to  the  natives  of  India,'  his  words 
were  received  with  a  storm  of  long-continued  and  earnest  cheering, 
VOL.  II. — 33 


514  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

such  as  one  who  had  been  present  at  many  pubHc  gatherings  in 
Calcutta  from  the  days  of  Lord  Dalhousie  downwards,  declared  he 
had  never  before  witnessed.*  No  one,  indeed,  who  was  present 
could  doubt  that  if  the  departing  Viceroy  was  not  '  popular '  in 
the  ordinary  and  superficial  sense  of  the  word,  he  possessed  that 
which  was  much  more  worth  having,  the  confidence  and  the  admi- 
ration of  his  countrymen  ;  and  that  he  could  render  to  them  the 
best  of  services  by  stirring  within  them  their  noblest  selves. 

That  night  he  slept  for  the  last  time  as  Governor-General  in 
Government  House.  The  next  day,  Lord  Mayo  was  to  arrive, 
and  while  Sir  John  Lawrence  was  awaiting  his  arrival,  there  took 
place  at  one  of  the  windows  of  Government  House  a  conversation 
which  I  venture  to  think  will  become  historical,  and  contains,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  choice  materials  for  the  painter  or  the  poet,  the 
sculptor  or  the  novelist. 

On  the  day  (says  Colonel  Randall)  of  Lord  Mayo's  arrival  in 
Calcutta,  Sir  John  Lawrence  and  I  were  watching  alone  from  a 
window  in  my  room  in  Government  House  the  troops  forming  up. 
Whilst  we  were  thus  occupied,  I  made  the  following  remark  :  'I 
should  like  very  much  to  know  what  your  feelings  are  at  this  mo- 
ment, when  you  are  about  to  deliver  over  the  government  of  this 
country.'  'It  is  strange,*  replied  Sir  John  Lawrence,  'that  you 
should  put  that  question  to  me  here  ;  for,  just  thirteen  years  ago,  I 
was  standing  in  this  very  room,  and,  I  believe,  at  this  very  window, 
talking  to  Lord  Dalhousie,  when  we  were  awaiting  the  arrival  of  Lord 
Canning,  and  I  put  to  him  the  very  question  which  you  have  just 
asked  me.  First,  I  will  tell  you  what  Lord  Dalhousie's  answer  was 
to  me,  and,  then,  I  will  give  my  answer  to  you.  You  know  (he  said) 
that  Lord  Dalhousie  was  very  ill  and  worn  out  w^hen  he  was  about 
to  leave  India.  Well,  he  had  been  standing  with  a  wearied  look, 
but  immediately  I  put  the  question,  he  drew  himself  up,  and  with 
great  fire  replied,  "  I  wish  that  I  were  Canning,  and  Canning  I,  and 
then  wouldn't  I  govern  India  !  "  Then,  of  a  sudden,  the  fire  died 
away  ;  and  with  a  sorrowful  look  he  said,  "  No,  I  don't.  I  would 
not  wish  my  greatest  enemy,  much  less  my  friend  Canning,  to  be  the 
poor,  miserable,  broken-down,  dying  man  that  I  am." 

'  And  now  for  my  own  answer.  I  did  not  wish  to  shorten  my 
regular  term  of  Office,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  prolong  it.  Latterly  I 
have  felt  the  strain  of  work  much,  and  were  I  to  prolong  my  Office, 
perhaps  I  should  not  have  the  strength  to  do  what  I  now  believe  I 

'   Dr.  George  Smith,  editor  of  the  Friend  of  India. 


1864-69       TENANT   RIGHT    AND    FOREIGN   POLICY.  515 

am  doing,  hand  over  the  Government  to  my  successor  efficient  in 
all  its  departments,  with  no  arrears,  and  with  all  open  questions  in 
a  fair  way  towards  settlement.  My  only  anxiety,  and  that  is  a  great 
one,  is  lest  some  of  the  measures  which  have  been  inaugurated  may 
not  be  developed  on  the  lines  which,  after  deep  reflection,  I  am 
convinced  are  the  true  ones.  If  I  had  a  desire  to  prolong  my  rule, 
it  would  be  to  ensure  the  completion  of  such  measures.  I  never 
cared  for,  I  do^not  regret  the  resignation  of  all  the  state,  pomp, 
power,  or  patronage  which  appertain  to  the  Office.  It  was  a  proud 
moment  to  me  when  I  walked  up  the  steps  of  this  house,  feeling  as 
I  then  did  that,  without  political  interest  or  influence,  I  had  been 
chosen  to  fill  the  highest  Office  under  the  crown,  the  Viceroy  of  the 
Queen.  But  it  will  be  a  happier  moment  to  me  when  I  walk  down 
the  steps  with  the  feeling  that  I  have  tried  to  do  my  duty.' 

The  public  spectacle  which  followed  has  been  well  described  by 
Dr.  Hunter,  an  eye-witness  : — • 

The  reception  of  a  new  Viceroy  on  the  spacious  flight  of  steps  at  Gov- 
ernment House,  and  the  handing  over  charge  of  the  Indian  Empire 
which  immediately  follows,  forms  an  imposing  spectacle.  On  this  oc- 
casion, it  had  a  pathos  of  its  own.  At  the  top  of  the  stairs  stood  the 
wearied,  veteran  Viceroy,  wearing  his  splendid  harness  for  the  last  day, 
his  face  blanched,  and  his  tall  figure  shrunken  by  forty  years  of  Indian 
service,  but  his  head  erect  and  his  eyes  still  bright  with  the  fire  which 
had  burst  forth  so  gloriously  in  India's  supreme  hour  of  need.  Arouqd 
him  stood  the  tried  counsellors  with  whom  he  had  gone  through  life,  a 
silent  calm  semicircle  in  suits  of  blue  and  gold,  lit  up  by  a  few  scarlet 
uniforms.  At  the  bottom  the  new  Governor-General  jumped  lightly  out 
of  the  carriage  amid  the  saluting  of  troops  and  glitter  of  arms,  his  large 
athletic  forni  in  the  easiest  of  summer  costumes,  with  a  funny  little  col- 
oured necktie,  and  a  face  red  with  health  and  sunshine.  As  he  came  up 
the  tall  flights  of  stairs  with  a  springy  step.  Lord  Lawrence,  with  a  visible 
feebleness,  made  the  customary  three  paces  forward  to  the  edge  of  the 
landing-place  to  receive  him.  I  was  among  the  group  of  officers  who 
followed  them  into  the  Council  Chamber,  and  as  we  went  a  friend  com- 
pared the  scene  to  an  even  more  memorable  one  on  the  same  stairs. 
The  toilworn  statesman  who  had  done  more  than  any  other  single  Eng- 
lishman to  save  India  in  1857  was  now  handing  it  over  to  an  untried 
successor  ;  and  thirteen  years  before.  Lord  Dalhousie,  the  stern  ruler 
who  did  more  than  any  other  Englishman  to  build  up  that  empire,  had 
come  to  the  same  agt  of  demission  on  the  same  spot,  with  a  face  still 
more  deeply  ploughed  by  disease  and  care,  a  mind  and  body  more  weary, 
and  bearing  with  him  the  death  which  was  about  to  come  upon  him  as 
the  price  of  his  great  services  to  his  country.  In  the  Chamber  Sir  John 
Lawrence  and  his  Council  took  their  usual  seats  at  the  table  ;  the  Chief 


5l6  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1864-69 

Secretaries  stood  round,  a  crowd  of  officers  filled  the  room,  and  the 
silent  faces  of  the  Englishmen  who  had  won  and  kept  India  in  times  past, 
looked  down  from  the  walls.  The  clerk  read  out  the  oaths  in  a  clear 
voice,  and  Lord  Mayo  assented.  At  the  same  moment,  the  Viceroy's 
band  burst  forth  with  '  God  save  the  Queen  '  in  the  garden  below,  a  great 
shout  came  in  from  the  people  outside,  and  the  hundred  and  ninety-six 
millions  of  British  India  had  passed  under  a  new  ruler. 

That  night,  a  state  dinner  was  given  by  the  outgoing  to  the  in- 
coming Governor-General,  and,  for  a  few  days,  Sir  John  Lawrence 
lingered  on,  as  he  had  arranged  beforehand,  half  as  the  host  and 
half  the  guest  of  Lord  Mayo,  in  Government  House.  He  had  much 
to  tell  and  teach,  and  Lord  Mayo  had  much  to  learn,  not  least 
on  the  question  of  frontier  policy  which  was  to  come  to  the  front 
again  at  the  approaching  UmbaJla  Durbar.  On  the  i8th  of  January 
he  received  farewell  addresses  from  the  inhabitants  of  Calcutta, 
from  the  bishop  and  clergy,  and  from  a  conference  of  missionaries, 
and,  on  the  following  morning,  he  took  his  way  down  to  Prin- 
seps'  Ghaut,  amidst  the  long  lines  of  troops  who  had  been  drawn 
up  to  do  him  honour.  Lord  Mayo  '  accompanied  him  unto  the  ship,' 
and  a  parting  cheer,  which  was  given  out  by  him  in  person  in  hon- 
our of  Sir  John  Lawrence,  was  caught  up  enthusiastically  by  the 
assembled  multitude.  And  so,  amidst  every  demonstration  of  respect 
and  of  regret,  there  passed  from  India,  travel-worn  but  not  travel- 
stained  or  travel-spent,  bent  but  not  broken,  the  veteran  Viceroy, 
almost  the  last,  and  certainly  the  most  illustrious  of  all  the  illus- 
trious servants  of  the  great  East  India  Company  ;  a  man  of  whom, 
if  of  any  one  among  them  all,  it  might  be  truly  said,  that,  through- 
out his  forty  years  of  Indian  service,  it  had  been  his  aim  '  to  do 
justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  his  God.' 


CHAPTER  XV. 

LAST  YEARS  OF  LORD  LAWRENCE. 

1869-1879. 

The  rest  is  soon  told.  Sir  John  Lawrence  had  yet  some  ten  years 
to  live.  But  they  were  years,  comparatively  speaking,  of  leisure 
and  domestic  enjoyment.  I  have,  in  a  previous  chapter,  described 
his  private  life  in  detail,  and  have  thrown  into  it,  by  anticipation, 
some  of  the  touches  and  traits  of  character,  and  some  also  of  the 
incidents  which,  chronologically,  belong  rather  to  this  later  period 
of  his  life.  I  feel,  therefore,  that  to  go  over  the  ground  again 
might  weaken,  rather  than  strengthen,  the  impression  which  I  have 
endeavoured  to  convey  of  the  home  life  of  a  man,  whose  otium 
would  never  be  otiosum,  who  was  always  sure  to  find  work  to  do, 
and  to  do  it  with  his  might,  and  the  kindness  of  whose  heart  was 
in  direct  proportion  to  the  downright  manner,  the  firm  will,  and 
the  untiring  energy  which  were  among  the  distinguishing  features 
of  his  life. 

On  his  way  to  England,  he  stopped  for  a  week  in  Ceylon,  that 
he  might  see  the  country  and  inspect  some  coffee  plantations  in 
which  he  had  an  interest,  and  in  the  management  of  which  he  then 
thought  that  one  or  more  of  his  sons  might  find  a  suitable  occu- 
pation. His  visit  made  him  think  otherwise.  He  landed  in  Eng- 
land on  March  15,  1869,  looking,  as  some  of  those  who  knew  him 
best,  thought,  '  much  broken. '  He  might  well  look  so.  He  had 
been  suffering  throughout  his  Viceroyalty,  as  he  himself  and  his 
medical  attendant  knew  well, — though  he  allowed  hardly  any  one 
else  to  know  it, — from  a  wearing,  if  not  exactly  a  dangerous,  disease, 
which,  if  it  had  made  his  work  doubly  heavy,  and  had  necessitated 
strict  rules  of  diet,  had  never  induced  him  to  slacken  speed  for  an 
instant.  '  No  arrears  '  had  been  the  motto  of  the  whole  of  his 
official  life.  He  had  succeeded  to  a  Viceroyalty  which  was  over- 
burdened with  them,  and  he  had  determined,  whatever  it  cost  him, 
that  his  successor  should  not  begin  under  a  similar  disadvantage. 

517 


5l8  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

The  doctors  whom  he  consulted  in  England  thought  that,  with  care, 
he  might  still  do  well.  He  made  little  change  in  his  usual  active 
habits  of  life.  He  went  out  in  all  weathers  and  never  worried 
himself  about  his  health,  and  so  it  returned  to  him  all  the  faster. 
He  entered  into  and  enjoyed  the  society  which  was  at  his  command, 
and  friends  new  and  old  once  more  gathered  round  him.  For 
worldly  honours  he  cared  little  or  nothing.  He  had  taken  them, 
when  they  came  in  his  way,  more  for  the  sake  of  those  dear  to  him 
than  for  his  own.  He  had  never  sought  such  things  ;  and  no 
amount  of  them  ever  turned  his  head,  ever  made  him  give  up  any 
one  of  his  favourite  maxims  or  habits,  ever  made  him  to  his  old 
friends  other  than  the  simple-hearted  John  Lawrence  that  he  had 
always  been. 

It  was  one  of  the  Duke  of  Argyll's  first  acts,  as  Secretary  of 
State  for  India,  to  recommend  him  for  the  honour  which  had  been 
so  long  deserved  and  so  long  delayed.  '  Some  weeks  ago,'  said  Mr. 
Gladstone,  writing  to  him  shortly  after  his  arrival,  '  on  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  I  took  the  Queen's  pleasure  on  my 
recommendation  that  a  peerage  should  be  offered  you  in  acknowl- 
edgment of  your  high  character  and  distinguished  services,  and  I 
am  truly  glad  to  learn  this  day  that  you  accept  the  offer  which  the 
Queen  authorised  me  to  make.  I  congratulate  the  House  of  Lords, 
not  less  than  yourself,  on  this  result.' 

Sir  John  Lawrence  cared  far  more  for  the  good  opinion  of  those 
who  had  watched  his  career  than  for  the  stamp  that  Avas  thus  put 
upon  it.  The  conversion  of  his  annuity  of  2,000/.  a  year  into  a 
pension  for  his  own  life  and  for  that  of  his  next  successor  in  the 
peerage — a  change  which  was  made  by  the  Indian  Council — showed 
what  Indian  experts  felt  of  his  services  ;  while  the  cheers  which 
greeted  him  on  both  sides  of  the  House  of  Lords,  as  he  rose,  on 
April  19,  to  deliver  his  maiden  spech  in  support  of  a  bill  for  limiting 
a  seat  on  the  Indian  Council  to  ten  years,  showed  what  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Order,  from  which  he  had  not  sprung,  thought  of  his 
elevation  to  it. 

The  title  which  he  selected  was  '  Lord  Lawrence  of  the  Punjab 
and  of  Grateley,'  and  none  certainly  could  have  been  more  appro- 
priate. *  Grateley '  commemorated  his  affection  for  his  sister,  who 
had  left  him  the  small  estate  in  Salisbury  Plain,  which  was  to  make 
the  new  peer  in  some  slight  sense  a  member  of  the  '  territorial 
aristocracy  ; '  while  '  the  Punjab  '  recalled  the  services  which  not 
he  alone,  but  a  whole  family  of  Lawrences  had,  according  to  their 
respective  opportunities  and  abilities,  rendered  in  one  of  the  latest, 


1869-79  LAST   YEARS   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  5 19 

and  perhaps  the  most  hnportant  acquisition  of  the  Enghsh  Crown  in 
India.  Some  months  before  the  return  of  her  husband,  Lady 
Lawrence  had  left  Southgate,  and  had  taken  a  house  for  a  year  at 
12  Queen's  Gate  ;  and  it  was  here,  on  March  15,  that  the  family 
meeting  took  place.  An  interval  of  full  five  years  had  made  a 
great  change  in  all  its  inmates.  Sir  John  Lawrence's  boys  had 
grown,  some  of  them,  into  men.  The  eldest  son,  John,  had  taken 
his  degree  at  Cambridge,  and  was  reading  for  the  bar  ;  the  second, 
Henry,  after  passing  through  Wellington  College,  had  gone  into 
business  ;  the  third,  Charles,  was  at  school  at  Marlborough  ;  while 
the  fourth,  Bertie,  the  Benjamin  of  the  family,  was,  to  the  great 
distress  of  his  parents,  about,  for  the  first  time,  to  leave  home  for 
school. 

Sir  John  Lawrence's  daughters,  too,  were  finding,  or  were  soon 
to  find  homes  for  themselves.  The  eldest,  as  I  have  related,  had 
been  married  to  Colonel  Randall  in  India  ;  the  third  was  married 
in  July  1870  to  Charles  Walford,  rector  of  a  parish  in  Suffolk  ;  and 
the  marriage  of  Mary,  the  fourth  daughter,  to  Francis  Buxton,  now 
M.P.  for  Andover,  which  took  place  in  February  1872,  brought  a 
family,  which  had  been  distinguished  during  more  than  one  genera- 
tion by  its  active  philanthropy  in  England  and  in  Africa,  into  close 
connection  with  the  family  which  had  probably  done  as  much  as 
any  other  single  family  in  a  like  cause  in  India.  The  home  circle 
was  thus  rapidly  narrowing.  After  the  last  of  these  marriages  had 
taken  place,  it  consisted — if  we  do  not  count  the  sons,  who  were  all 
more  or  less  absent — of  two  daughters  only,  Emily  and  Maude. 
But  a  third  lady,  Miss  Gaster,  must  by  no  means  be  omitted.  She 
had  originally  helped  to  take  charge  of  the  Lawrence  children  at 
Southgate  House  during  their  parents'  absence  in  India,  but  she 
now  became  a  valued  member  of  the  family,  and,  some  years  after- 
wards, when  Lord  Lawrence  became  incapacitated  by  blindness 
for  much  of  his  active  work,  she  was  to  do  him  ungrudging  and  in- 
valuable work  as  his  private  secretary.  Her  keen  and  loving  ap- 
preciation of  his  character  will  be  sufficiently  apparent  from  some 
reminiscences  which  I  hope  soon  to  quote. 

Many  of  Lord  Lawrence's  old  lieutenants  and  friends  had 
already  taken  up  their  quarters  in  Kensington,  and  frequent  visits 
from  his  brothers  George  and  Richard,  from  Montgomery,  from 
Trevelyan,  from  Eastwick,  from  Raikes,  from  Seton-Karr,  from 
John  and  Edward  Thornton,  and  many  other  Anglo-Indians  who 
had  held  high  offices,  helped  to  make  his  house  a  centre  in  which 
there  was  at  least  as  keen  an  interest,  and,  very  probably,  quite  as 


520  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

profound  a  knowledge  of  all  that  was  going  on  in  India  as  in  the 
India  Office  itself.  Other  old  friends  whose  names  have  occurred 
before  in  this  biography,  the  Kensingtons,  the  Sandarses,  the  Caters, 
the  Charles  Bradleys,  and  many  others,  gave  a  variety  and  freshness 
to  the  gatherings  which  is  not  often  to  be  found  in  the  households 
of  retired  Anglo-Indians.  On  Sunday  afternoons  in  particular 
there  would  often  be  a  considerable  number  of  distinguished 
writers  at  Lord  Lawrence's  house,  anxious,  some  of  them,  to  hear 
their  host's  opinion  on  current  Indian  questions  ;  others,  perhaps, 
still  more  eager  to  listen  to  the  stores  of  information,  combined 
with  a  strong  sprinkling  of  personal  adventure,  which  the  veteran 
Governor-General  would,  in  all  the  fulness  of  his  experience  and 
knowledge,  pour  forth  with  childlike  simplicity  to  any  one  who 
cared  to  hear  them. 

A  short  visit  to  Lynton  that  he  might  see  the  grave  of  his  sister, 
and,  on  his  way  back,  take  one  more  look  at  Clifton  and  at  Bath, 
the  scenes  of  his  childhood  and  youth,  and  a  rather  longer  family 
tour  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  gave  some  variety  of  scene  to  his  first 
six  months  in  England. 

In  the  autumn  of  1S69,  ^i-ftcr  the  labours  of  house  hunting  and 
furnishing  had  been  completed,  he  was  able  to  settle  down  at  No. 
26  Queen's  Gate.  An  occasional  game  of  croquet  in  the  adjoining 
Horticultural  Gardens,  into  which  he  entered  with  all  his  old  zest, 
and  an  occasional  day's  shooting  at  Quex  Park,  a  place  near  Mar- 
gatv^,  which  he  took  for  the  autumn  months  of  1870,  were  his  chief 
relaxations.  In  the  following  winter  the  election  of  the  first  Lon- 
don School  Board  was  to  take  place,  in  accordance  with  the  pro- 
visions of  Mr.  Forster's  great  Educational  Act.  Some  of  the  fore- 
most educationalists  of  the  nation  were  anxious  to  get  a  seat  upon 
it,  and  Lord  Lawrence  felt  no  little  surprise  when  he  was  invited  to 
stand  for  the  Kensington  District.  Many  of  his  friends  advised 
him  against  it  on  the  score  of  his  health.  It  was  not  work  for 
which  he  had  any  special  aptitude.  But  he  had  done  something 
for  education  in  India.  He  saw  that  there  was  good  work  to  be 
done  in  the  same  direction  in  England  ;  and  when  he  was  assured 
by  those  whom  he  could  trust  that  he  might  help  the  cause  alike  by 
his  name  and  by  his  advice,  he  would  not  hang  back,  and  was 
elected  by  a  large  majority. 

The  first  duty  of  the  new  Board  was  to  elect  a  Chairman. 
Several  private  meetings  had  already  been  held  to  discuss  the 
merits  of  the  various  candidates  who  were  likely  to  be  nominated, 
and  it  was  soon  seen  that  the  only  possible  rival  to  Lord  Lawrence 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  52 1 

would  be  Mr.  Charles  Reed,  who  was  strongly  supported  by  the 
Nonconformists.  But  at  the  first  public  meeting  at  Guildhall, 
the  ballot  disposed  of  all  other  claims,  and  Lord  Lawrence  was 
unanimously  elected  Chairman,  with  Mr.  Reed  as  his  Deputy- 
chairman. 

We  all  felt  (says  Mr.  Lafone,  who  served  on  the  Board  with  Lord 
Lawrence)  the  vast  importance  of  starting  on  our  work  with  a  man  of 
such  European  reputation  at  our  head,  and,  from  the  very  first,  the 
wisdom  of  our  choice  was  made  evident.  Judgment,  moderation,  and 
firmness  combined  to  rule  the  somewhat  discordant  elements  in  the 
Board.  I  can  well  recall  the  unwearied  patience  with  which  Lord  Law- 
rence presided  over  our  debates,  especially  that  memorable  one  when  it 
was  sought  to  exclude  all  religious  teaching  from  the  schools.  When  he 
closed  the  debate  and  spoke  his  own  views,  it  was  with  no  uncertain 
sound,  and  we  all  felt  how  deeply  he  was  interested  in  the  issue.  Then, 
in  Committee  work,  which  forms  the  daily  business  of  the  Board,  he  was 
unremitting  in  his  attendance.  He  never  seemed  satisfied  till  he  had 
mastered  the  details  of  all  the  subjects  dealt  with,  so  that,  at  the  weekly 
meetings  of  the  General  Board,  his  knowledge  of  the  questions  under 
debate  was  minute  and  intimate.  His  interest  never  flagged  while  his 
health  lasted,  and  when,  at  the  end  of  the  first  term  of  three  years,  fail- 
ing powers  obliged  him  to  withdraw  from  such  laborious  work,  his 
former  colleagues  passed  a  resolution  recording  their  deep  regret  at  his 
loss,  and  every  word  breathed  the  feelings  of  respect  and  appreciation  in 
which  his  labours  were  held. 

There  are,  as  I  have  remarked  before,  few  more  characteristic 
acts  in  Sir  John  Lawrence's  life  than  his  becoming  chairman  of  the 
School  Board.  He  hated  all  Boards  as  such.  The  Punjab  Board, 
the  Lidian  Council  at  home,  the  Legislative  Council,  and  even  the 
Executive  Council  in  India  had,  none  of  them,  been  quite  to  his 
liking.  He  was  a  man  of  action.  He  disliked  talking  for  talking's 
sake  ;  and  at  all  Boards,  even  the  best  regulated,  there  is  probably 
much  more  of  talk  than  of  work.  Those  who  are  the  best  talkers 
necessarily  occupy  most  of  the  time  and,  not  unfrequently,  have  the 
most  influence.  Soundness  of  judgment,  impartiality,  patience, 
untiring  attention,  profound  knowledge  are  apt  to  be  overborne  by 
the  mere  flow  of  words.  Lord  Lawrence  was  never  a  ready  speaker. 
He  was  not  naturally  patient.  He  had  not  those  peculiar  gifts  of 
tact  and  versatility  which  sometimes  make  a  man,  who  is  by  no 
means  commanding  in  other  respects,  a  first-rate  chairman.  Yet 
with  imperturbable  patience — as  the  members  of  the  Board  in  gen- 
eral, and  as  Sir  Charles  Reed  and  Mr.  Edward  Buxton,  his  succes- 
sors, in  particular,  testify — he  listened,  week  after  week,  to  speeches 


522  LIFE    OF   LORD    LAWRENXE.  1869-79 

which  were  delivered  by  the  members  as  much  to  their  con- 
stituents as  to  their  colleagues  ;  and  not  unfrequently  by  his  few 
closing  words  and  by  the  weight  of  his  character  combined  he 
succeeded  in  bringing  even  some  rather  violent  partisans  over  to  his 
views.  He  had,  as  every  one  knew,  decided  religious  convictions 
of  his  own.  But,  just  as  in  India  his  strong  good  sense  and  his 
love  of  justice  had  prevented  him  from  being  carried  away  by  the 
arguments  of  those  who  would  have  'eliminated,'  as  they  called  it, 
'all  unchristian  principles  from  the  Government  of  India,'  and  in 
the  process  would  have  swept  away  much  that  is  of  the  very  essence 
of  Christianity,  its  dealing  with  others  as  they  would  themselves  be 
dealt  by,  its  tolerance,  its  charity,  its  comprehensiveness,  so,  now,  it 
was  the  same  habit  of  mind,  preserved  during  even  the  upheaval 
of  the  Mutiny,  which  enabled  him  to  hold  the  balance  between  the 
extreme  views  of  those  who,  if  they  could  have  had  their  way,  would 
have  turned  schools  supported  by  the  State  into  engines  of  prose- 
lytism,  and  those  who  would  have  excluded  religion  and  even  relig- 
ious influence  altogether  from  the  school  course. 

A  letter  which  I  have  received  from  Mr.  Edward  Buxton,  who 
now  worthily  occupies  Lord  Lawrence's  place  as  Chairman  of  the 
School  Board,  and  served  with  him  on  it  from  the  beginning,  gives 
a  forcible  and,  as  it  appears  to  me,  an  entirely  accurate  view  of 
Lord  Lawrence's  work  and  the  way  in  which  he  regarded  it. 

It  would  be  a  mistake,  he  says,  to  suppose  that  Lord  Lawrence  went 
into  his  new  duties  thoroughly  C07i  amore.  There  was  no  lack  of  a  cer- 
tain stern  enthusiasm  about  him  and  a  strong  belief  in  the  beneficent 
work  in  which  we  were  enga^d,  and  he  would  take  any  trouble  when 
there  was  anything  to  be  done.  But  the  talk  bothered  him.  The  long 
debates  to  settle  the  main  lines  of  our  action  which  characterised  the 
first  years  of  the  Board's  existence  were  unavoidable.  But  I  am  sure  he 
often  longed  to  get  rid  of  all  his  colleagues,  and  to  have  unlimited  power 
himself  for  a  month.  Essentially  a  man  of  action,  he  longed  to  get  the 
builder  and  the  schoolmaster  to  work,  and  he  was  wearied  by  speeches 
which  were  interesting  to  specialists  but  occupied  much  time.  I  do  not 
mean  that  he  ever  showed  outward  signs  of  impatience.  But  this  feel- 
ing showed  itself  in  his  private  conversatioit.  He  stood  it  as  he  would 
have  stood  a  siege,  but  was  always  longing  for  the  day  0/  action.  He 
seized,  I  remember,  almost  greedily  on  a  proposal  of  Lord  Sandon's 
that  we  should  build  twenty  schools  at  once  in  the  most  neglected  parts 
of  London  without  waiting  lor  the  exact  statistics,  which  were  some  time 
in  i)rcparation. 

He  seldom  spoke  himself,  feeling  that  a  chairman  risks  his  character 
for  impartiality  if  he  mixes  in  debates  on  matters  about  which  there  are 
decided  differences  of  opinion.     But  he  did  so  occasionally  on  subjects 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  523 

about  which  he  felt  strongly,  and  especially  on  the  question  of  religious 
teaching,  which  was  so  hotly  debated.  On  this  question  he  always  took 
the  line  that  the  doctrines  upon  which  all  Christian. denominations  are 
agreed  are  of  infinitely  greater  importance  than  those  upon  which  they 
differ,  and  that  we  should  remember  the  agreement  rather  than  the 
difference. 

In  the  details  of  his  work  for  the  School  Board  Lord  Lawrence 
received  ungrudging  help  from  his  Private  Secretary,  Mr.  Edgcomb, 
and  also  from  his  eldest  unmarried  daughter  Emily,  who  often 
spent  the  whole  morning  writing  for  him.  But  the  worry,  the  bad 
air,  the  gas  lights,  and  the  talk  soon  proved  too  much  for  him. 

Wednesday  afternoon,  says  Lady  Lawrence,  was  the  time  appointed 
for  the  meetings  of  the  Board,  and  as  my  husband  was  also  a  Director  of 
the  North  British  Insurance  Company,  and  their  meetings  were  on  the 
fore-noons  of  that  same  day,  he  was  kept  pretty  busy.  It  often  grieved 
me  to  see  him  coming  home  on  these  occasions  looking  very  worn  and 
weary.  But  he  would  not  admit  that  he  was  overdone.  After  .a  short 
sleep  and  a  cup  of  tea  he  greatly  revived,  and  was  ready  for  a  dinner- 
party either  at  home,  or  elsewhere.  But  in  the  season  he  would  not, 
when  he  could  avoid  it,  go  out  in  the  evening,  except  when  the  House  of 
Lords  was  not  sitting.  In  the  spring  of  187 1  we  took,  for  our  summer 
quarters,  Brockett  Hall  in  Hertfordshire,  a  large  and  beautiful  place,  the 
property  of  Lord  Cowper,  and  well  known  to  Englishmen  as  having  been 
the  last  residence  of  both  Lord  Melbourne  and  Lord  Palmerston  and  the 
scene  of  their  death.  Here,  for  several  years,  we  had  much  enjoyment 
and  many  happy  family  gatherings.  He  never  seemed  to  find  the  coun- 
try dull,  though  he  was  not  equal  to  the  long  walks  of  former  years. 
We  had  a  little  carriage  in  which  we  took  long  and  pleasant  excursions. 
He  always  liked  driving  spirited  horses,  and  I  well  remember  a  grey 
mare,  called  '  Lady  Kate,'  of  which  he  was  very  fond.  She  was  given 
to  running  away,  and  as  his  sight  was  beginning  to  fail  him,  we  had 
many  a  narrow  escape.  But  the  pressure  of  work  was  evidently  telling 
more  and  more  on  him,  and  I  was  growing  more  and  more  anxious. 
At  last,  by  his  doctor's  advice,  he  consented,  with  great  reluctance,  to 
go  abroad  for  part  of  the  winter. 

But  meantime  a  domestic  event  occurred  which  gave  us  great  happi- 
ness. Our  fourth  daughter,  Mary,  became  engaged  on  Christmas  Day, 
1871,  to  Francis  Buxton,  whom  we  had  known  and  liked  for  some  time, 
and  who  belonged  to  a  family  for  which  we  had  a  true  esteem  and  ad- 
miration. '  Life  with  its  myriad  grasp,'  was  indeed  going  on  for  us,  and 
our  children  were  rapidly  passing  from  the  home  of  their  youth.  The 
marriage  took  place  on  February  28th,  and  about  a  month  afterwards 
we  were  able  to  start  for  a  warmer  climate.  Not  liking  to  leave  his 
work  at  the  School  Board  undone,  my  husband  had  offered  to  resign  his 


524  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

place  upon  it,  but  was  urgently  requested   not  to  do  so.     Accordingly, 
he  agreed  to  hold  on,  and  take  three  months'  leave  of  absence. 

Lord  Lawrence  first  went  to  Paris,  a  place  which  was  made 
doubly  interesting  to  him  just  then  by  its  recent  experiences  of  war 
and  famine.  He  visited  the  Tuileries  and  St.  Cloud  in  their  ruins, 
and  some  of  the  outlying  forts,  which,  household  words  as  they 
were  in  Europe  a  few  years  ago,  are  all  but  forgotten  now.  His 
courier  happened  to  have  accompanied  the  party  of  Englishmen 
who  had  brought  relief  to  the  starving  inhabitants  after  the  termina- 
tion of  the  siege,  and  had  much  to  tell  of  what  he  had  seen  and 
heard.  The  balmy  air  of  Marseilles,  of  Cannes,  and  of  the  Riviera 
generally,  caused  a  perceptible  improvement  in  his  health,  and  he 
was  able  to  enjoy  the  rough  inn  accommodations  and  the  exposure 
and  the  bleak  weather  which  he  had  to  encounter  in  crossing  the 
spur  of  the  Apennines  between  Sestri  and  Spezia. 

At  Rome,  continues  Lady  Lawrence — whose  narrative  I  slightly  con- 
dense— we  had  a  pleasant  stay  of  some  three  weeks.  We  visited  the  old 
haunts  which,  nearly  thirty  years  before,  we  had  seen  together  on  our 
wedding  tour,  and  there  was  much  to  awaken  both  sad  and  happy  mem- 
ories of  the  intervening  time.  He  was  very  restless,  and  I  fear  we  were 
all  so  delighting  in  the  life  that  we  did  not  sufficiently  try  to  restrain 
him.  He  did  not  share  in  the  interest  which  most  of  us  took  in  the 
churches,  and  would  sit  impatiently  waiting  while  we  wandered  about. 
It  was  here  that  he  chiefly  showed  fatigue.  He  liked  rambling  over  the 
old  city.  But  he  was  impatient  if  we  took  too  long  in  our  explorations, 
and  was  continually  hurrying  us  on.  The  drives  and  walks  he  liked  ; 
also  the  picture  and  sculpture  galleries.  Not  that  he  ever  thought  him- 
self a  good  judge  of  pictures  or  professed  to  know  much  about  them  ;  but 
I  never  saw  him  in  a  gallery  without  his  picking  out  at  once  the  best 
pictures  in  it.  The  illumination  of  the  Colosseum  which  took  place  in 
honour  of  the  visit  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  struck  him  greatly.  It  was  the 
one  occasion  on  which  he  ventured  out  in  the  evening.  All  this  is  of 
little  interest  to  anyone  but  myself,  but  I  love  to  linger  over  the  memories 
of  the  last  long  journey  which  I  ever  was  to  take  with  him.  I  cannot  say 
that  at  this  time  I  was  very  anxious  about  his  health,  for  it  had  decidedly 
improved  since  he  left  England.  I  did  notice  his  great  restlessness,  but 
attributed  it  to  his  desire  to  crowd  as  much  as  possible  into  the  few 
months'  holiday  which  he  allowed  himself. 

We  arrived  at  Naples  by  the  end  of  April,  and  thought  it  more  lovely 
than  ever.  The  profusion  of  flowers,  the  way  in  which  they  were  flung 
into  the  carriage  as  we  drove  along,  and  the  trifle  of  money  that  we  paid 
for  them,  amused  him  much.  The  younger  members  of  the  party  made 
an  expedition  to  Vesuvius,  but  he  and  I  considered  ourselves  much  too 
old  for  such  a  proceeding.     On  our  way  to  Sorrento  we  spent  some  hours 


1869-79  LAST   YEARS   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  525 

at  Pompeii.  This  visit  he  thoroughly  enjoyed,  and  he  remarked  how 
much  the  scenes  he  there  witnessed  reminded  him  of  India,  its  ways 
and  its  people.  At  Sorrento  we  made  the  acquaintance  of  Archdeacon 
and  Mrs.  Blunt  ;  an  acquaintance  which  soon  ripened  into  a  warm  friend- 
ship. We  stayed  there  ten  days,  and  made  many  expeditions  in  the 
neighbourhood,  on  donkeys,  but  we  managed  to  secure  a  stout  little  pony 
for  his  special  benefit. 

The  great  excitement  of  the  time  was  the  eruption  of  Vesuvius  which 
was  going  on.  We  watched  it  with  almost  fearful  interest.  The  noise 
was  terrific  at  times,  and  the  column  of  smoke  by  day  and  the  pillar  of 
fire  by  night  was  a  wonderful  and  solemn  sight.  My  husband  felt  keenly 
for  the  village  people  who  had  been  driven  from  their  homes,  and  the 
daily  telegrams  and  letters  from  Naples  were  of  deep  interest.  After 
ten  days'  rest,  he  wished  to  begin  the  homeward  journey,  and  on  the 
last  day  of  April  we  left  for  Naples.  The  worst  of  the  eruption  was  now 
over,  and,  as  we  passed  along  the  road,  we  met  crowds  of  the  village 
people  returning  to  their  homes.  Here  again  he  remarked  how  what  he 
saw  reminded  him  of  an  Indian  flitting  ;  whole  families  bringing  all  their 
household  goods  ;  fathers  and  mothers  carrying  babies  and  bundles, 
with,  perhaps,  here  and  there  the  help  of  a  donkey  or  pony  !  On  arriving 
at  Naples,  we  were  more  fully  impressed  with  the  consequences  of  the 
eruption.  The  place  which  we  had  left,  so  short  a  time  before,  bathed 
in  sunshine  and  beauty  was  looking  black  and  dark  and  wretched.  A 
furious  wind  was  howling.  The  ground  was  covered  with  black  sulphur 
ashes,  and  the  air  was  filled  with  a  blinding  dust  of  the  same.  Tlie 
whole  place,  in  fact,  seemed  to  have  put  on  mourning,  and  the  noise  was 
distracting.  Notwithstanding  all  this  gloom,  as  soon  as  we  had  had 
lunch,  he  and  I  set  out  from  our  hotel  to  visit  a  Presbyterian  school.  It 
was  not  a  favourable  time  for  this,  but  he  was  specially  interested  in  the 
school,  and  accomplished  his  object. 

At  Rome  a  piece  of  family  news  of  great  interest  reached  him, 
the  engagement  of  his  eldest  son  John  to  Mary,  only  daughter  of 
Mr.  Archibald  Campbell,  of  Glencarradale,  Argyleshire.  Passing 
on  his  way  home  through  Florence  and  Milan  he  visited  the  Italian 
lakes.  Thence  he  went  to  Verona  and  Venice,  and  among  the  sights 
of  each  famous  town,  he  seldom  neglected  to  visit  the  Government 
Schools.  A  large  silkworm  farm  on  Lake  Garda  particularly  inter- 
ested him,  as  did  also  the  religious  fervour  of  the  peasants  in  the 
Tyrol,  who,  at  Botzen,  had  flocked  in  from  all  the  country  round 
for  some  grand  festa,  and — the  interior  of  the  churches  being  already 
full — might  be  seen  kneeling  down  in  crowds  on  the  roads.  A  drive 
over  the  Brenner  brought  him  to  Innsprtick,  and  so  on  to  Munich, 
Baden,  Frankfort,  Cologne,  and  Brussels.  Thus  ended  the  last 
prolonged  tour  which  Lord  and  Lady  Lawrence  were  ever  to  take 


526  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

together,  and  I  am  much  mistaken  if  the  details  of  it  which  I  have 
given,  chiefly  from  Lady  Lawrence's  account,  will  not  interest  many 
others  than  its  writer. 

Delighted  to  be  at  work  once  more  in  England,  Lord  Lawrence 
declared  that  no  doctors  should  ever  tempt  him  to  leave  it  again. 
He  regularly  attended  the  School  Board  meetings,  the  North  British 
Insurance  committees,  and  the  meetings  for  the  various  charitable 
objects  which  were  nearest  to  his  heart.  He  also  became  a  member 
of  the  Council  of  Guy's  Hospital,  and  was  appointed  President  of 
the  *  Commission  of  Inquiry '  into  the  loss  of  the  steamship  '  Me- 
gaera  ; '  a  task  at  which  he  worked  with  a  zeal  and  energy  worthy  of 
his  best  Punjab  days.  The  marriage  of  his  eldest  son  took  place 
on  August  22,  and  Lord  and  Lady  Lawrence  thereby  gained  a 
daughter,  who  became  a  most  welcome  member  of  the  family,  and 
was,  at  all  times,  warmly  to  identify  herself  with  its  interests.  In 
the  following  month.  Lord  Lawrence  paid  his  first,  and,  I  think,  his 
last  visit  to  his  small  property  at  Grateley,  going  the  round  of  the 
cottages,  the  schools,  and  the  church,  and  providing,  as  far  as  he 
could,  for  the  wants  of  each.  He  had  gained  much  strength  by  his 
tour  abroad,  and,  for  a  year  or  two  to  come,  there  was  not  much  to 
make  his  family  anxious  on  the  score  of  his  health. 

When  Parliament  was  not  sitting  he  retired  regularly  to  his 
beloved  Brockett  Hall,  and  was  never  so  happy  as  when  he  was  en- 
tertaining there  a  large  family  party  of  children,  grandchildren,  and 
friends.  The  number  of  his  grandchildren  was  rapidly  increasing. 
They  all  took  to  him  from  their  earliest  days,  and  he,  in  his  turn, 
took  a  truly  childlike  pleasure  in  their  society.  Occasional  visits 
to  friends  like  the  Hanburys  at  Poles,  or  the  Gurney  Hoares  and 
Buxtons  in  Norfolk,  gave  him  a  complete  holiday  while  they  lasted. 
He  made  a  point  of  visiting  regularly  the  schools  at  Brockett,  which 
gained  from  his  residence  in  their  neighbourhood,  as  much  as  those 
at  Southgate  had  gained  from  him  eight  years  before. 

In  November,  1873,  Lord  Lawrence  retired  from  the  School 
Board,  having  served  his  full  three  years  upon  it.  His  family  did 
not  wish  him  to  stand  again,  for  his  health  no  longer  seemed  equal 
to  it.  The  work  which  he  had  done  as  Chairman  had  not  been 
showy — he  would  have  hated  that  it  should  be — but  it  had  been 
real  ;  and  its  effects  were  to  be  lasting.  The  leading  principles 
on  which  the  Board  was  to  work  had  been  settled  beforehand  by  Mr. 
Forster's  Bill.  But  the  great  question  whether  religious  instruction 
was  to  be  given  in  the  Board  schools,  or  not,  had  been  purposely 
left  open.     In  this  matter.  Lord  Lawrence  took  a  large  part ;  and. 


1869-79  LAST   YEARS   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  527 

after  long  debates,  in  the  year  1871,  the  important  resolution  was 
arrived  at,  which  has  subsequently  been  adopted  by  the  majority  of 
School  Boards  in  England  and  in  Wales,  *  that  the  Bible  should  be 
read,  and  that  there  should  be  given  such  explanations  and  such  in- 
structions therefrom  on  the  principles  of  morality  and  religion,  as  are 
suited  to  the  capacities  of  children.'  In  other  respects,  the  work  was 
chiefly  that  of  detail  ;  the  lines  for  the  subsequent  operations  of  the 
Board  were  laid  down,  and  the  machinery  devised  and  set  in  motion. 

During-  the  first  two  years  (says  Mr.  Croad,  who  as  Clerk  of  the  School 
Board  sat  by  Lord  Lawrence  throughout,  and  has  the  best  riglit  to  speak 
on  the  subject)  the  meetings  and  committees  were  almost  incessant,  many 
of  them  meeting  at  the  same  time.  Lord  Lawrence  made  a  point  of 
being  present  at  every  committee  at  which  he  could  possibly  attend,  and 
when  two  were  sitting  at  the  same  moment  his  Private  Secretary  would 
attend  the  one  at  which  he  could  not  be  present,  and  would  furnish  a 
report  for  his  information.  It  was  under  his  guidance,  or  with  his  co- 
operation, that  the  main  committees  of  the  Board  were  created  and  their 
duties  defined.  These  were  the  '  Finance  '  Committee  ;  the  '  Statistical ' 
Committee,  which  took  a  census  of  London,  and  made  recommendations 
for  the  erection  of  new  schools  ;  the  '  Works'  Committee,  which  formed 
the  sites  and  planned  the  buildings  ;  the  'Bye-Laws'  Committee,  which 
arranged  the  machinery  for  the  improvement  of  compulsion  throughout 
the  ten  divisions  of  London  ;  the  '  Industrial  Schools '  Committee,  which 
proposed  and  administered  the  agreements  with  existing  voluntary 
schools  for  the  reception  of  children  sent  to  them  by  magistrates  at  the 
instance  of  the  Board  ;  and  the  '  School  Management'  Committee,  which 
undertook  the  superintendence  and  management  of  all  Board  schools. 
.So  numerous,  and  so  complicated  were  the  matters  of  detail  which  had 
to  be  considered  in  these  early  years,  and  so  unremitting  was  the  atten- 
tion they  required,  that  the  strain  became  too  great,  and  Lord  Lawrence 
began  to  have  sleepless  nights,  and  was  compelled  to  go  abroad  for  three 
months  in  the  spring  of  1S73.  He  returned  with  his  health  partially  re- 
stored in  June,  and  in  the  following  month  he  presided  at  the  opening  of 
the  first  school  erected  by  the  Board,  that  in  Old  Castle  Street,  White- 
chapel. 

At  the  last  meeting  of  the  first  Board,  held  on  November  26,  1873, 
besides  the  vote  of  cordial  thanks  to  its  retiring  Chairman,  it  was  an- 
nounced that  a  subscription  had  been  started  amongst  the  members  to 
perpetuate  the  memory  of  Lord  Lawrence's  Chairmanship  by  founding 
two  scholarships,  one  for  boys  and  one  for  girls,  to  be  called  the  Law- 
rence scholarships  ;  while  the  permanent  officers  of  the  Board  subscribed 
a  sum  of  money  and  presented  to  the  Board  a  portrait  of  him,  painted 
by  Mr.  Edgar  Williams,  which  now  hangs  in  the  Board  room. 

It  is  hardlv  necessarv  to  add  that  right  on  till  his  death  Lord 


528  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

Lawrence  continued  to  retain  a  deep  interest  in  the  educational 
work  which  he  had  been  obUged  to  relinquish,  and  Mr.  Bright,  in 
a  speech  which  he  recently  delivered  at  Llandudno,  while  referring 
to  a  visit  which  Lord  Lawrence  had  once  paid  in  company  with  him 
to  the  schools  erected  by  the  Board,  expressed  in  his  own  nervous 
English,  the  feelings  with  which  he — and  if  he,  then,  assuredly, 
Lord  Lawrence  himself — must  have  regarded  the  work  that  had 
been  done. 

I  went,  he  said,  some  few  years  ago,  with  the  late  Lord  Lawrence 
and  the  late  Sir  Charles  Reed,  who  were,  in  their  times,  the  heads  of  the 
School  Board  for  London,  and  spent  the  forenoon  in  visiting  three  great 
schools  in  the  East  End  of  London,  in  or  about  Bethnal  Green,  and  I 
cannot  tell  the  emotion  with  which  my  mind  was  filled  at  seeing  these 
great  schools  and  those  children  gathered  up  from  districts  which  are 
most  remote,  I  will  not  say  from  civilisation,  but  from  the  civilisation  of 
the  West  End.  In  coming  away  from  those  schools,  I  did  not  know 
whether  to  laugh  with  joy  at  what  I  had  seen,  or  to  cry  at  the  thought 
that,  for  the  last  two  hundred  years,  nothing  of  the  kind  had  been 
attempted  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  this  country. 

In  London  Lord  Lawrence  still  found  charitable  work  of  every 
kind  ready  to  his  hand.  Whenever  his  advice  was  asked  and  he 
felt  that  it  could  be  given  with  effect,  he  attended  the  committee 
meetings  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  and  took  a  deep  inter- 
est in  their  proceedings. 

The  very  high  opinion  which  Lord  Lawrence  had  formed  of  the 
work  done  by  missionaries  in  India  may  be  shown  by  an  extract 
from  a  speech  which  he  delivered  at  a  meeting  of  the  Wesleyan 
Missionary  Society  at  Highbury  : — 

I  believe,  notwithstanding  all  that  the  English  people  have  done  to 
benefit  that  country,  the  missionaries  have  done  more  than  all  other 
agencies  combined.  They  have  had  arduous  and  uphill  work,  often 
receiving  no  encouragement,  and  sometimes  a  great  deal  of  discourage- 
ment, from  their  own  countrymen,  and  have  had  to  bear  the  taunts  and 
obloquy  of  those  who  despised  and  disliked  their  preaching  ;  but  such 
has  been  the  effect  of  their  earnest  zeal,  untiring  devotion,  and  of  the  ex- 
cellent example  which  they  have,  I  may  sjy,  universally  shown  to  the 
people,  that  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  that,  in  spite  of  the  great  masses 
of  the  people  being  intensely  opposed  to  their  doctrine,  they  are,  as  a 
body,  remarkably  popular  in  the  country.  ...  It  seems  to  me  that, 
year  by  year  and  cycle  by  cycle,  the  influence  of  these  missionaries  must 
increase,  and  that,  in  God's  good  will,  the  time  may  be  expected  to  come 
when  large  masses  of  the  people,  having  lost  all  faith  in  their  own,  and 
feeling  the  want  of  a  religion  which  is  pure  and   true  and  holy,  will  be 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  529 

convertefl  and  profess  the  Christian  rehjjion,  and  having  professed  it, 
live  in  accordance  with  its  precepts.  ...  I  have  a  great  reverence  and 
regard  for  them  (the  missionaries)  both  personally,  and  for  the  sake  of 
the  great  cause  in  which  they  are  engaged  ;  and  I  feel  it  to  be  a  pleasure 
and  a  privilege  to  do  anything  I  can  in  the  last  years  of  my  life  to  further 
the  great  work  for  which  they  have  done  so  much. 

He  made  great  efforts  to  extricate  the  Home  for  Crippled  Boys 
in  Kensington  from  the  debt  in  which  it  was  involved,  and  at  last 
succeeded  in  putting  it  on  a  satisfactory  footing.  He  took  much 
interest  also  in  Lady  Kinnaird's  work  in  the  East  of  London,  and 
liecame  Chairman  of  the  Committee  for  giving  relief  to  working 
women.  Many  appeals  for  help  came  to  him,  and  no  poor  woman 
was  ever  sent  away  without  her  case  being  carefully  inquired  into, 
and,  if  necessary,  substantial  help  given. 

In  January,  1875,  Lord  Lawrence  sent  his  youngest  son,  Bertie, 
to  Harrow.  He  was  placed  in  the  house  of  Dr.  Butler,  the  Head 
Master,  but  it  was  arranged  that  he  should  be  the  private  pupil  of 
Henry  Hart,  one  of  the  Assistant  Masters,  who  was  closely  con- 
nected in  many  ways  with  the  Lawrences  and  with  India.  His 
father  had  been  a  schoolfellow  of  John  Lawrence  at  Foyle,  was 
connected  by  marriage  with  Archdeacon  Hamilton,  Lady  Law- 
rence's eldest  brother,  and  had  passed  the  best  part  of  his  life  in 
India,  as  a  Bombay  civilian.  His  mother  was  sister  to  Sir  Bartle 
Frere,  and  he  himself  had  recently  been  married  to  Ilonoria,  the 
only  daughter  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  a  girl  who  was  endowed  with 
much  of  her  father's  energy  and  vivacity,  and  who  ever  since  she 
had  been  left  an  orphan  had  been  under  the  fatherly  guardianship 
of  Lord  Lawrence.  Thus  it  came  about  that  at  the  same  house 
at  Harrow,  might  be  seen,  perchance  on  alternate  Saturdays,  the 
chief  representatives  of  the  '  forward  '  and  the  '  backward  '  school 
of  frontier  policy  in  India,  the  men  whose  contrasts  of  character  and 
policy,  whose  antagonisms,  have  borne  so  considerable  a  part  in  this 
biography — Sir  Bartle  Frere  and  Lord  Lawrence.  It  was  to  these 
visits  to  Harrow  that  I  owed  my  first  introduction  to  the  man  whose 
life  I  am  now  writing,  and  whose  kindness,  continued  till  within  a 
few  days  of  his  death,  I  shall  always  cherish  among  my  brightest 
memories. 

In  the  autumn  of  1875  Lord  Lawrence  was  obliged  to  give  up 
Brockett  Hall,  where  he  had  spent  several  happy  seasons  of  rest 
and  retirement;  and  about  the  same  time,  or  early  in  1876,  his 
eyesight,  which  had  been  weak  for  some  years  past,  began  to  give 
signs  of  failing  him  altogether.     It  was  the  penalty  exacted   by 

VOL.  II. — 34 


530  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

Nature  for  those  exhausting  labours  carried  on  for  so  many  years 
in  his  cutcherry  and  at  his  writing  desk,  which  had  helped  to  or- 
ganise a  province  and  to  save  an  Empire.  Terrible  as  was  the 
privation  and  keenly  as  he  felt  it,  I  do  not  think  that  he  ever  re- 
gretted the  labours  which  had  brought  it  on,  or  that,  if  the  time  had 
come  over  again,  he  would  ever  have  thought  of  acting  otherwise. 

'  Great  and  sore  trouble  (says  Lady  Lawrence)  was  now  drawing 
nearer  to  us.  The  difficulty  which  my  husband  had  in  reading  the 
morning  prayers  first  opened  our  eyes  to  the  fact ;  for  he  was  often 
obliged  to  hand  over  the  book  tome.  In  the  spring  of  the  year,  he 
consulted  Liebricht,  the  famous  oculist,  whose  report  was  most 
discouraging.  "  I  can,"  he  said,  "  in  your  case,  only  advise  resig- 
nation." This  depressed  my  husband  terribly  ;  and  by  Dr.  Kidd's 
advice  he  consulted  another  oculist,  who  took  a  very  hopeful  view, 
and  said  he  could  improve  the  sight,  but  succeeded  in  doing  so  for 
only  a  very  short  time.  In  July  it  became  worse  than  ever,  and 
the  same  oculist  now  advised  an  operation.  I  protested  against 
this,  and  so,  at  first,  did  Dr.  Kidd.  The  oculist  won  the  day,  and 
it  was  arranged  that  the  operation  should  be  performed  at  9  a.m. 
on  the  13th  of  July.  There  was  now  nothing  to  be  done  but  to 
face  the  trouble  and  to  hope  for  the  best.  We  were  all  ready  at 
the  right  time  on  that  sad  day  ;  he  and  I  sitting  alone  in  the  li- 
brary, waiting  for  the  doctors.  It  was  hard  and  sorrowful  work. 
But  he  was  so  brave  and  strong,  and  we  were  each  of  us,  I  think, 
doing  our  best  not  to  let  the  other  see  what  we  were  suffering.  At 
last  the  doctors  arrived,  and  we  went  to  the  back  drawing-room, 
the  light  there  answering  better.  I  think  I  see  him  now,  as  he 
walked  upstairs,  free  and  erect,  for  the  last  time  in  his  life,  without 
the  help  of  an  arm  or  stick.  The  operation  was  performed  under 
chloroform,  and  was  soon  over,  and  we  hoped  and  believed  that  no 
harm  was  done,  and  that  all  would  yet  be  well.  He  was  in  good 
spirits,  and  talked  freely  to  the  friends  that  called  upon  him. 

'  That  night,  I  slept  on  a  couch  by  his  bedside  in  the  drawing- 
room  ;  and  towards  morning,  he  called  to  me,  saying  he  was  in 
terrible  pain,  and  felt  as  if  some  tight  bandage  was  over  his  eyes. 
We  were  much  alarmed,  and  when  the  doctor  and  the  oculist  came 
they  too  looked  very  grave,  but  they  still  hoped  that  the  pain 
would  subside.  Alas,  a  long,  weary  time  of  blindness  and  agony 
followed,  borne  with  the  most  wonderful  sweetness  and  patience, 
as  day  followed  day  of  ever-increasing  suffering.  It  was  some 
weeks  before  there  was  any  relief  ;  and,  day  and  night,  nursing 
was  required. 


1869-79  LAST   YEARS    OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  53 1 

'  On  August  16  we  managed  to  move  him  to  Folkestone.  I  will 
not  dwell  on  this  long  time  of  suffering  except  to  say  that  his  gen- 
tle patience  never  failed,  and  to  recall  how  earnestly  he  prayed 
with  me  that  God  would  help  him  to  submit  with  resignation  to 
His  will.  Folkestone  did  him  some  good  ;  and  we  were  able, 
occasionally,  to  take  him  into  the  large  public  garden,  where  he 
could  sit  for  hours.  It  was  overpowering,  indeed,  to  see  him  thus 
laid  low  ;  the  man  who  had  helped  to  take  Delhi  and  govern  a 
kingdom  so  worn  out.  But  to  us  who  had  the  privilege  of  watch- 
ing him,  day  by  day,  it  seemed  that  he  was  grander  than  ever  in 
his  afifiiction,  and  we  realised  the  truth  that  "  he  who  ruleth  his 
spirit  is  greater  than  he  who  taketh  a  city."  No  man  ever  kept 
himself  more  in  hand,  and,  by  God's  help,  he  was  made  stronger  to 
suffer. 

'  As  the  excessive  pain  declined,  his  strength  began  to  return, 
and  he  used  to  take  short  drives  or  even  walks.  He  was  not  quite 
blind.  But  the  sight  of  one  eye  was  absolutely  gone,  and  the  other 
was  so  weak  that  any  strong  light  greatly  distressed  him.  We 
could  not  now  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  operation  had  been 
a  sad  failure,  and  ought  never  to  have  been  attempted.  We  all 
felt  it  very  keenly,  but  he  never  said  a  hard  word  of  anyone.  His 
goodness,  and  sweetness,  and  patience  made  him,  if  possible,  more 
precious  than  ever  to  us.  It  was  such  a  glad  day  when  he  was  able 
once  more  to  come  into  the  dining-room  and  have  his  food  with 
us.  We  returned  to  London,  the  first  week  in  October,  and  when 
our  sons  came  home  in  the  evening,  it  was  with  surprise  and  delight 
that  they  found  their  father  once  again  able  to  take  his  place  at 
the  dinner-table,  the  chief  difference  being  that  his  food  had  to 
be  cut  up  for  him. 

'  Next  day  we  went  to  the  oculist  to  see  what  course  he  now 
recommended.  He  said  that  another  operation  would  be  necessary 
before  the  power  of  sight  could  be  restored  to  the  remaining  eye, 
as  a  cataract  was  upon  it,  but  he  added,  as  he  had  done  on  a  former 
occasion,  that  the  operation  would  be  a  mere  trifle.  We  could  not 
quite  accept  this  in  faith  after  our  late  experience,  and  we  consulted 
two  other  oculists,  Dr.  Bowman  and  Mr.  Cooper,  who  recommended 
us  to  wait  till  the  spring,  when  the  cataract  would  be  more  fully 
developed.  My  husband's  spirits  now  greatly  revived.  He  was 
free  from  pain,  resumed  his  daily  walks,  went  to  church,  and  even 
attended  the  North  British  Insurance  meetings.  But,  alas  !  all 
independence  of  action  was  gone,  and  he  could  no  longer  go  al)out 
alone.     Of   course,  he  was   never   at    a   loss    for   glad    and  ready 


532  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

helpers.  Our  son  John,  in  particular,  having  no  special  work,  was 
always  at  his  father's  service.  His  sister  Mrs.  Bernard,  died 
unexpectedly  on  January  30,  and  this  was  a  great  shock  to  him. 
We  lived  very  quietly  during  these  months  of  patient  waiting.  But 
it  was  always  a  pleasure  to  him  to  see  his  friends,  and  they  were  very 
good  and  kind  in  paying  him  frequent  visits.  His  thirst  for  reading 
was  greater  than  ever,  and  our  daughter  Emmie  and  Miss  Gaster  were 
invaluable  to  him  in  their  power  of  reading  aloud.  I  am  afraid  to 
say  the  number  of  books,  new  and  old,  that  he  got  through. 

*  By  the  middle  of  February,  we  again  went  to  Dr.  Bowman,  Avho 
now  thought  that  the  time  had  come  for  the  cataract  to  be  removed. 
But  he  advised  that,  for  all  our  satisfaction,  there  should  be  a 
consultation  first  with  other  oculists,  as  well  as  with  Sir  Joseph 
Fayrer,  who  had  recently  been  attending  him,  and  had  been  with 
his  brother.  Sir  Henry,  in  his  last  moments  at  Lucknow.  It  was 
anxious  work  waiting  for  their  verdict.  But  they  soon  returned  to 
the  room  in  which  we  were  waiting,  and  said  they  were  agreed  that  the 
operation  might  be  attempted  without  delay,  and  with  good  hope  of 
a  favourable  result.  '*  When  will  you  be  ready  ?  "  said  Dr.  Bow- 
man. "  To-morrow,"  replied  my  husband,  without  a  moment's 
hesitation.  This  was  sooner,  however,  than  Dr.  Bowman  himself 
wished  ;  for  he  said  that  we  must  move  to  an  hotel  in  Clifford 
Street,  close  to  his  house,  so  that  he  might  come  in  and  out  fre- 
quently. 

'Saturday,  the  3rd  of  March,  was  the  day  fixed  for  the  operation. 
We  began  the  day  as  usual,  and  my  husband  came  down  to  prayers 
in  the  morning.  After  breakfast  we  went  to  call  at  Argyll  Lodge, 
and  saw  the  Duke  and  Duchess,  with  whom  he  sat  for  some  time. 
They  were  full  of  kindness  and  sympathy,  and  the  visit  cheered 
and  did  us  good.  On  our  return  home  Mr.  Maclagan,  then  Vicar 
of  Kensington,  and  now  Bishop  of  Lichfield,  came  to  see  us  before 
we  started  for  the  hotel,  and  prayed  with  us.  Miss  Marsh,  too, 
had  been  with  me  the  day  before,  and  had  promised  to  remember 
us  at  her  prayer-meeting  on  that  day.  All  the  love  and  sympathy 
which  were  shown  to  us  helped  us  greatly,  and  my  husband  was 
as  brave  and  hopeful  as  possible.  He  even  slept  a  little  before  Sir 
Joseph  Fayrer  and  Dr.  Bowman  arrived.  It  was  about  4  p.m.  when 
they  appeared,  and  he  at  once  got  up  and  walked  into  the  bedroom. 
I  went  with  him  and  took  out  the  false  eye  that  had  been  made  to 
fill  the  gap  of  the  poor  blind  one.  I  was  then  obliged  to  leave  him 
in  the  kind  hands  of  the  doctors,  for  they  would  not  let  me  be 
present.     Then  came  some  terrible  seconds  of  suffering,  which  to 


1869-79        LAST   YEARS   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  533 

me  seemed  hours.  At  last  Dr.  Bowman  came  to  tell  me  that  it 
was  over,  and  that  he  hoped  and  believed  that  the  operation  would 
be  a  success.  No  chloroform  had  been  administered  this  time, 
and  when  I  went  to  see  him,  he  was  looking  peaceful  and  happy, 
and  Dr.  Bowman  told  us  how  well  he  had  borne  the  pain.  I  read 
to  him  all  the  evening.  He  was  quite  free  from  pain,  and  in  good 
spirits.  The  next  day,  Sunday,  was  his  66th  birthday.  He  was  as 
well  as  could  have  been  expected.  He  got  up  at  noon,  and  was 
able  to  receive  our  children  by  degrees  when  they  came  to  the 
hotel.  He  made  good  progress  day  by  day.  He  was  gradually 
able  to  bear  more  light  in  the  room,  and  was  soon  able  to  feed 
himself. 

*  On  March  12  we  returned  to  our  house  in  Queen's  Gate,  which 
we  had,  unfortunately,  sold  when  all  this  trouble  was  coming  on  ; 
and,  on  the  24th,  we  were  obliged  to  move  out  of  it  again  to  the 
new  house  we  had  taken  for  a  year,  No.  33  Queen's  Gate  Gardens. 
On  the  following  day,  Sunday,  we  were  able  to  go  out  for  our  first 
walk  in  the  gardens  opposite  the  house.  He  was  soon  tired,  but 
was  so  glad  to  be  at  liberty  to  see  his  friends  once  more.  I  must 
not  forget  to  mention  one  whom  he  greatly  valued,  Mr.  Seton-Karr, 
who  never  failed  to  come  and  see  him  every  Sunday,  and  who, 
even  still,  continues  this  kindness  to  me.  His  old  and  dear  friend, 
Sir  Robert  Montgomery,  also  paid  him  constant  visits,  and  many 
others  too  numerous  to  name.  By  degrees  he  resumed  his  old 
habits,  and,  by  the  middle  of  May,  we  all  longed  for  a  change,  and 
decided  on  a  trip  to  the  New  Forest.  He  could  see  enough  to 
enjoy  the  scenery,  though  he  could  not  manage  to  get  about  alone. 
We  visited  Lyndhurst,  Ringvvood,  Christchurch,  Winchester,  and 
Salisbury,  spending  a  few  days  at  each  place.  On  coming  home, 
he,  once  again,  attended  at  the  House  of  Lords,  our  son  John 
always  going  with  him.  Of  course,  he  was  still  unequal  to  reading 
and  writing,  and  this  was  a  great  deprivation  to  him.  But  the 
feeling  of  relief  from  the  fear  of  total  darkness  was  so  intense  that 
we  could  only  be  filled  with  thankfulness  and  rest  in  the  hope 
which  Dr.  Bowman  and  Dr.  Kidd  held  out  that,  as  his  health 
became  more  fully  established,  the  sight  would  be  greatly  improved. 
On  June  7,  Dr.  Bowman  removed,  by  what  is  called  the  'needle 
operation,'  a  slight  film  that  remained  on  the  eye,  and  obstructed 
the  vision.  It  was  really  a  small  matter,  but  it  helped  on  his  partial 
recovery.* 

This  narrative,  so  tender,  so  touching,  so  simple,  of  a  calamity  so 
heroically  borne,   I  have   thought   it  well    to   give  throughout   as 


534  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

nearly  as  possible  in  I.ady  Lawrence's  own  words,  and  I  will  not 
weaken  it  by  one  word  of  comment. 

'  Early  in  July  (she  continues)  our  daughter  Emmie  became  en- 
gaged to  Henry  Cuningham,  who  is  now  a  puisne  judge  of  the 
High  Court  of  Calcutta.  We  were  very  glad  she  was  to  be  so  hap- 
pily married,  but  as  Henry  Cuningham's  profession  obliged  him 
to  go  to  India,  we  felt  the  parting  greatly.  She  had  been  her 
father's  right  hand  in  the  first  days  of  the  School  Board  work,  and, 
during  his  illness,  her  calmness  and  courage  were  an  unfailing  sup- 
port. They  were  married  on  July  28,  and  her  father  gave  her 
away.  It  made  my  heart  sink  to  see  how  frail  he  looked,  as  he  led 
her  up  to  the  altar,  though  he  was  then  on  his  way  to  recovery.' 

That  autumn.  Lord  Lawrence  took  a  place  in  Scotland  near  In- 
verness, and  here  he  received  visits  from  his  old  and  dear  friends, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cater,  from  the  Buxtons,  and  from  the  newly  married 
Cuninghams.  He  could  now  read  a  large  printed  Testament,  and 
this  was  a  great  joy  to  him.  It  was  the  only  book  he  opened  for  a 
long  time.  '  It  was  touching,'  says  Lady  Lawrence,  '  to  see  him  at 
first  trying  to  read  again,  and  his  pleasure  in  finding  that  he  could 
do  so.  But  any  prolonged  effect  of  the  kind  brought  on  giddiness.' 
Not  feeling  strong  enough  to  accept  the  invitation  of  the  IJuke  and 
Duchess  of  Argyll,  who  had  been  most  constant  in  their  attentions 
and  inquiries,  to  go  to  Inverary  before  he  left  Scotland,  he  returned 
to  London  in  October,  and  once  more,  actually,  resumed  his  work 
at  the  North  British  Insurance  Company.  The  Cuninghams  left 
for  India  before  Christmas,  and  then  Miss  Caster  took  up  the  post 
of  Private  Secretary,  *  and,'  says  Lady  Lawrence,  '  was  untiring  in 
her  devotion  to  him.'  The  sudden  death  of  the  Duchess  of  Argyll 
in  May,  1878,  gave  him  a  terrible  shock.  He  had  the  greatest 
esteem  and  affection  for  her,  and  she  had  always  been  a  true  and 
kind  friend  to  him.  The  death  of  his  sister-in-law,  the  wife  of  Sir 
George  Lawrence,  which  happened  about  the  same  time,  was 
another  heavy  blow. 

And  here  I  am  able  to  insert  a  short  account  written  by  Miss 
Gaster,  who,  as  may  be  gathered  from  what  I  have  already  written, 
had  good  opportunities  of  observing  Lord  Lawrence  closely  during 
the  last  ten  years  of  his  life,  and,  as  will  be  apparent  from  the  remi- 
niscence I  am  about  to  quote,  had  made  the  best  use  of  them. 

Lord  Lawrence's  return  from  India,  in  the  spring'  of  1869,  was  a 
matter  of  great  interest  and  excitement  to  all  the  dwellers  in  No.  12 
Queen's  Gate,  and  to  myself  not  the  least.  From  the  time  of  the  Mutiny, 
when  quite  a  child,  I  had  always  considered  Sir  John  Lawrence  as  one 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS  OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  535 

of  the  greatest  of  heroes.  This  feeling  was  raised  to  the  highest  pitch 
when  Sir  Herbert  Edvvardes  made  his  celebrated  speech  at  Exeter  Hall, 
and  from  a  glimpse  I  caught  of  the  hero  himself,  who  was  on  the  plat- 
form, but  who,  with  characteristic  modesty,  kept  in  the  background, 
though  called  for  repeatedly  by  the  enthusiastic  assembly.  No  wonder, 
then,  that  in  after  years,  wlien  circumstances  were  such  that  I  tormed 
part  of  his  household,  the  prospect  of  seeing  him  should  awaken  in  me  a 
kind  of  delightful  terror.  Of  course,  doubts  as  to  how  so  high  a  being 
would  treat  one  in  every  way  insignificant  was  a  matter  of  intense  per- 
sonal interest.  '  Where  are  they  all  ? '  were  the  first  words  which  struck 
my  listening  ear  ;  and  when,  an  hour  or  two  afterwards,  I  was  intro- 
duced to  Sir  John  Lawrence,  whether  '  in  the  flesh  or  out  of  the  flesh ' — 
or,  in  more  vulgar  phrase,  whether  I  was  on  my  head  or  my  heels — was 
more  than  I  could  say. 

I  cannot  help  laughing,  even  now,  at  the  idiotic  condition  to  which 
nervousness  and  admiration  combined  had  reduced  me.  Sir  John  Law- 
rence gave  rather  a  gruff  nod  in  response  to  my  humble  obeisance,  and 
I  then  subsided  on  the  nearest  chair,  from  sheer  inability  to  stand. 
When,  however,  on  retiring  for  the  night,  after  taking  leave  of  the  others 
he  held  out  his  hand  to  me  and  smiled,  my  terror  was  a  thing  of  the  past, 
and,  from  that  time  until  the  sad  night  in  June  1879,  ^'^^  intensest  ad- 
miration, the  deepest  respect,  and  the  greatest  affection  of  my  heart 
were  for  him.  When,  later  on,  I  was  able,  in  a  small  way,  to  be  of  use 
to  him,  the  remembrance  of  his  past  and  present  kindness  would  have  led 
me  to  any  sacrifice  for  him.  This  is  said  with  no  idea  of  self-display, 
but  from  the  desire  to  disprove  the  old  saying  that  '  familiarity  breeds 
contempt.'  After  ten  years'  witness  of  his  private  life,  I  believe,  from 
the  depth  of  my  heart,  that  God  never  made  a  purer,  nobler  nature  than 
liis.  Faults,  of  course,  he  had.  But  to  those  who  knew  him  well  they 
were  only  spots  in  the  sun  of  his  goodness,  inappreciable  in  the  warmth 
and  life  he  diffused  around. 

Sir  John's  appearance  was  very  worn,  and  he  struck  m.e  then  as  being 
tired  and  shaken.  This  impression  gradually  wore  off  as  his  activity  of 
mind,  and  the  general  stir  which  his  presence  caused,  made  themselves 
felt.  For  the  first  year  or  two  after  his  return  my  memory,  in  great  part, 
fails  me.  The  School  Board  election  caused  great  excitement,  and  his 
attendance  at  the  Board  and  at, the  Megaera  Commission  was  a  lesson  as 
to  how  work  ought  to  be  done.  But  the  heat  of  the  room  and  the  worry 
and  vexation  of  the  School  Board  meetings  had  a  very  prejudicial  effect 
on  his  health. 

It  was  at  Brockett  Hall  that  I  began  to  see  more  of  Lord  Lawrence. 
He  was  very  fond  of  croquet,  and  was  an  excellent  player,  and,  by  dint 
of  manifold  scoldings,  he  educated  me  to  a  great  pitch  of  excellence  in 
the  art.  Many  hours  of  each  day,  even  in  the  midst,  very  often,  of  pour- 
ing rain,  he  would  play.  A  very  muscular  parson  who  lived  near  Brock- 
ett was  often  invited  to  join  in  these  games,  and  bitterly  did  I  rue  it 
when,  through  my  stupidity,  the  game  was  lost. 


536  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1S69-79 

Lord  Lawrence  was  very  anxious  about  the  education  of  his  two 
youngest  children.  He  had  more  opportunity  of  watching  their  progress 
than  he  had  had  in  the  case  of  the  older  members  of  his  family.  It  was 
hard  work  during  Bertie's  holidays  to  keep  matters  going  with  sufficient 
quickness.  The  Historical  part  of  his  education  Lord  Lawrence  took  on 
himself.  Bertie  was,  during  one  holiday,  reading  for  the  Bourchier  prize 
at  Harrow.  '  The  Hundred  Years  War  '  was  the  subject,  and  Lord  Law- 
rence would  hear  him  read  for  a  couple  of  hours  every  day,  and  talk  to 
and  question  him  on  the  subject.  lie  was  so  immensely  interested  in  it 
himself,  that  if  he  had  stood  for  the  examination  at  Harrow,  the  other 
competitors  would  have  had  a  poor  chance. 

Lord  Lawrence  had  a  great  opinion  of  girls  as  contrasted  with  boys, 
He  thout;ht  they  were  naturally  better,  more  painstaking,  more  amiable. 
I  am  inclined  to  think,  however,  that  it  was  not  only  at  that  early  age 
that  he  would  have  given  the  preference  to  the  gentler  sex.  Unless 
proved  to  the  contrary,  he  always  gave  a  woman  the  credit  of  being 
everything  she  ought  to  be  ;  whereas,  in  regard  to  men,  he  always  re- 
quired them  to  be  proved  good  before  he  would  trust  them.  The  qual- 
ities he  most  valued  in  a  man  were  energy,  pluck,  and  straightforward- 
ness ;  in  a  woman,  gentleness,  implicit  obedience,  and  good  looks. 

The  kindness  of  his  heart  was  not  only  shown  to  his  personal  friends, 
but  made  itself  felt  by  all  who  were  thrown  in  his  way.  Whilst  driving 
on  the  long  road  from  Brockett  to  the  station,  whenever  he  overtook  a 
woman  hurrying  along,  however  dirty  and  hot,  or  especially  if  burdened 
with  a  heavy  basket,  he  would  always  give  her  '  a  lift,'  talk  to  her  in  the 
kindliest  way,  and  leave  her  rejoiced  at  the  sympathy  which  he  had  shown 
for  her  poor  cares. 

The  lodges  at  the  park  gates  were  inhabited  by  four  old  women,  all 
characters  in  their  way  ;  and  many  are  the  amusing  conversations  which 
I  have  heard  between  Lord  Lawrence  and  them.  Three  of  them  held 
very  strong  religious  opinions.  But  I  am  afraid  Lord  Lawrence's  pref- 
erence was  given  to  the  fourth,  who  had  a  very  racy  tongue,  quietly  ab- 
jured tracts,  and  was  suspected  of  a  leaning  towards  spiritual  comfort 
of  another  kind.  However,  they  all  lived  in  clover  during  Lord  Law- 
rence's tenancy  of  Brockett.  One  Sunday,  we  were  out  walking  in  the 
park.  There  had  been  a  very  high  wind  the  day  before,  and  the 
ground  was  strewn  with  broken  branches.  It  suddenly  struck  Lord 
Lawrence  what  a  boon  these  would  be  to  the  lodge-keepers  ;  so,  despite 
our  Sunday  garb,  we  were  made  to  gather  huge  bundles  and  drag — 
where  they  were  too  large  to  lift — the  fragments  of  the  thicker  boughs. 
In  this  manner  we  proceeded  to  the  cottages,  and  never  shall  I  forget 
the  look  of  a  young  man  who  was  a  good  deal  of  a  dandy  and  had  been 
dining  at  the  Hall  a  few  days  previously,  at  such  a  strange  procession, 
headed  by  Lord  Lawrence  himself,  who  was  dragging  the  largest  piece 
of  wood.  It  is  to  be  hoped  it  did  him  good  !  But  the  cold  to  the  ears 
of  the  old  women  when  they  were  forced  to  leave  their  firesides  to  open 
the  gates  was  a  trouble  to  Lord  Lawrence,  and  he  did  not  rest  until — 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  537 

a  rather  difficult  matter — he  had  provided  them  with  thick  knitted 
woollen  bonnets  which  were  rain-  and  frost-proof.  Treats  to  the  school 
children,  substantial  teas  for  the  labourers  and  their  wives,  help  in 
every  way  to  the  clergyman  of  the  parish,  were  matters  of  constant 
occurrence.  I  would  give  anything  now  to  remember  more  of  such  acts 
of  kindness  ;  Wordsworth's  words  are  a  comfort,  however,  when  he 
speaks  of — 

That  best  portion  of  a  good  man's  life. 

His  little,  nameless,  unremembered  acts 

Of  kindness  and  of  love. 

Nobody  ever  knew  Lord  Lawrence  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  a  call  for  help. 
It  was  not  until  I  began  to  do  Secretary's  work  for  him  that  the  extent 
of  the  demands  on  his  purse,  and  the  unostentatious,  generous  manner 
in  which  they  were  met,  became  known  to  me.  To  those  in  real  distress 
nothmg  could  exceed  the  delicacy  with  which  he  gave  ;  and  anything 
bestowed  as  an  encouragement  on  a  person  like  myself  was  accompanied 
by  some  humorous  remarks  as  to  its  disposal,  which  did  away  with  any 
awkwardness  in  the  transaction.  He  had  a  rooted  dislike  to  waste  of 
any  kind,  more  particularly  of  money  ;  often  saying  that  until  people  ex- 
perienced how  difficult  it  was  even  to  earn  a  shilling  honestly,  they  could 
not  properly  understand  its  value.  Very  soon  after  I  made  his  acquaint- 
ance he  ascertained  that  I  was  not  of  a  saving  disposition.  My  spend- 
ing days  came  to  an  abrupt  conclusion.  Part  of  my  salary  was  kept 
back  nolens  volens,  five  per  cent,  allowed  on  it,  and  my  finances  put  on 
a  firm  basis.  No  Indian  'cooking  of  accounts'  would  ever  have  suf- 
ficed to  blind  him.  The  simple  principle  that  expenditure  must  be  well 
inside  income  was  the  only  receipt  he  had  for  ensuring  a  surplus  and 
avoiding  a  deficit. 

After  leaving  Brockett,  we  spent  part  of  the  ensuing  year  at  Torquay, 
and  it  was  about  this  time  that  his  strength  and  sight  showed  decided 
symptoms  of  failing.  The  year  1876  was  doubtless  the  saddest  of  his 
life.  The  first  part  was  full  of  the  terrible  anxiety  caused  by  his  seeing 
less  day  by  day,  and  the  remainder  of  it  in  undergoing  the  operations  on 
liis  eyes  which,  besides  causing  him  agonising  pain  for  four  months,  left 
him  in  almost  complete  darkness.  Those  who  nursed  him  during  this 
awful  trial  were  witnesses  of  his  patience  and  calmness  through  long 
days  and  nights  of  suffering.  To  him  the  anticipation  of  blindness  and 
the  dependence  on  others  which  necessarily  accompanies  it  must  have 
been  peculiarly  terrible. 

The  spring  of  the  next  year  brought  hope  with  it.  After  a  consulta- 
tion of  oculists,  another  operation  was  proposed,  which  restored  a  mod- 
erate amount  of  sight  to  one  eye,  sufficient  for  him  to  see  his  friends,  and 
to  enable  him  to  read  and  write  a  little  for  himself. 

The  autumn  of  1877  we  spent  in  Scotland.  I  had  then,  for  some  time, 
been  acting  as  his  amanuensis  and  reader.  We  found  in  the  house  we 
went  to  a  capital  library,  the  books  in  which  were  an  unfailing  source  of 


538  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

amusement  during  the  constant  rains  of  that  inclement  season.  Long 
drives  to  see  the  country  were  the  great  excitement,  and  I  will  write  a 
rather  characteristic  little  incident  which  took  place  in  one  of  them. 
Lord  Lavvrence  was  very  fond  of  economising  his  time.  So  before  start- 
ing on  these  drives  I  was  always  supplied  with  literature  of  sonie  kind 
with  which  to  improve  our  minds.  It  happened  one  day  that  I  was  read- 
ing to  him  '  The  Saturday  Review  ' — much  to  my  grief,  for  we  were  pass- 
ing through  the  most  glorious  scenery  in  a  glen  called  the  Dhrina  ;  the 
hills  rising  on  one  side  of  the  carriage,  and  descending  very  steeply  on 
the  other,  for  about  a  hundred  feet.  I  suddenly  became  aware  of  an 
unusual  motion  of  the  carriage,  and  on  turning  round,  saw  the  horses 
making  decided  objections  to  passing  a  traction  engine  which  nearly 
filled  the  narrow  road.  Naturally  I  paused.  'Why  are  you  stopping  ?  ' 
said  Lord  Lawrence.  '  I  was  just  thinking  how  long  we  had  to  live,'  I 
replied.  'Go  on  reading,'  said  he,  'I  will  tell  you  when  we  begin  to 
roll  over  the  brink.'     Needless  to  say,  I  went  on. 

Very  few  visitors  made  their  way  so  far  north.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cater, 
old  friends  of  Lord  and  Lady  Lawrence,  relieved  our  monotony  for  a 
while.  This  formed  the  bright  spot  in  our  Scotch  exile  ;  for  Mrs. 
Cater  was  a  most  delightful  old  lady,  who  had  travelled  a  great  deal, 
and  seemed  never  to  have  forgotten  anything  of  interest  which  she  had 
either  seen  or  heard.  This,  joined  to  a  great  simplicity  of  mind,  made 
her  one  of  the  most  name  and  piquant  of  story-tellers.  Lord  Lawrence, 
of  course  had  an  endless  supply  of  adventures  to  relate,  and  a  story  told 
by  the  one  served  to  recall  something  to  the  memory  of  the  other.  Dear 
old  lady,  she  has  only  recently  died,  and  Lord  Lawrence's  name  was 
one  of  the  last  on  her  lips.  The  simplicity  which  was  a  characteristic  of 
both  of  them  had  made  them  true  and  tried  friends  for  years. 

On  August  I,  Lord  Lavvrence  moved  with  his  family  to  a  house 
near  Broadstairs,  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  which  he  had  taken  for  the 
autumn  months.  He  went  there  for  rest  and  sechision,  but  little 
enough  of  either  was  he  to  get.  For  it  was  from  that  unknown 
house,  from  those  nearly  sightless  eyes,  and  from  that  enfeebled 
frame,  that,  by  means  of  his  noble  letters  to  the  '  Times,'  was  to  be 
set  on  foot  a  movement  which  though  it  could  not  undo  what  had 
been  planned  and  carried  out  by  the  help  of  strange  evasion  in  the 
dark,  and  though  it  could  not  turn,  at  once,  a  mechanical  majority 
in  the  House  of  Commons  into  a  minority,  should  yet  arouse  the  con- 
science of  Englishmen  generally  to  a  sense  of  the  sin  and  the  shame, 
the  blunder  and  the  crime  in  which  they  were  about  to  be  involved  ; 
and  after  every  prediction  which  he  had  uttered  in  his  letters  had 
been  fulfilled  to  our  bitter  cost,  and  after  his  own  lips  were  silent  in 
the  grave,  should  contribute  to  secure  a  comi)lete  and,  it  is  to  be 
hoped,  a  final  abandonment  of  the  policy  of  aggression  and  wrong. 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  539 

It  may  have  been  observed  that  I  have  said  little  or  nothing  in 
this  concluding  chapter  of  Lord  Lawrence's  interest  in  public  affairs, 
or  of  the  part  which  he  took  in  them.  But  it  is  not  because  that 
interest  had  grown  dull,  or  because  he  had  not,  when  occasion 
called,  made  his  influence  felt.  On  first  entering  the  House  of 
Lords  he  had  taken  his  seat  on  the  cross  benches  and  had  con- 
tinued to  do  so  till  the  close  of  the  session  ;  till,  in  fact,  his  general 
agreement  with  Ministers  in  the  line  which  they  were  taking  on  the 
Irish  Church  Disestablishment,  brought  him  into  closer  political 
sympathy  with  the  Liberal  leaders.  He  spoke  rarely  ;  for  speaking 
was  far  from  being  Ayvi,  forte,  and  he  was  conscious  of  it.  But  when 
any  Indian  subject  came  to  the  front  he  spoke  with  earnestness  and 
force,  and  was  listened  to  by  both  sides  of  the  House,  and,  it  may 
be  added,  by  the  country  at  large,  with  that  deference  which  his 
unrivalled  experience,  his  abounding  knowledge,  and  the  weight  of 
his  character  deserved.  He  followed  with  keen  interest  every  mil- 
itary movement  on  the  continent  of  Europe  and  throughout  the 
world.  He  mastered  every  Indian  blue-book  ;  and  when  he  could 
no  longer  see  to  read  them  himself,  there  was  no  lack  of  loving 
lips  to  read  them  to  him.  One  day  when  he  was  literally  writhing 
on  his  couch  in  agony  from  his  eye,  he  insisted  on  some  Indian 
famine  statistics  in  a  blue-book  being  read  aloud  to  him  ;  and 
though  he  made  no  comment  on  them  at  the  time,  he  showed  by 
remarks  which  he  made  afterwards,  when  the  extremity  of  the  pain 
was  lessened,  that  he  had  grasped  the  whole. 

For  some  five  years  past  Lord  Lawrence  had  had  the  infinite 
satisfaction  of  feeling  that  Lord  Granville  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll 
at  home,  and  Lord  Mayo  and  Lord  Northbrook  in  India,  were 
strenuously  endeavouring  to  carry  out  the  policy  which  he  had 
consistently  advocated  towards  Afghanistan,  towards  Central  Asia, 
and  towards  Russia.  In  particular  a  friendly  understanding  had 
been  arrived  at  with  the  great  northern  power  that  she  should  leave 
Afghanistan  alone  ;  while  we,  on  our  part,  were  to  endeavour  by 
peaceful  means  to  persuade  the  Ameer  not  to  intrigue  in  the  Cen- 
tral Asian  states  beyond  the  Oxus.  The  peaceful  progress  which 
had  been  the  chief  characteristic  of  his  own  administration  had 
thus  also  characterised  the  all  too  brief  Viceroyalty  of  Lord  Mayo, 
and  seemed  likely  to  attend  that  of  Lord  Northbrook  to  its  close. 
The  pledges  of  friendly  feeling  and  of  non-interference  given  by 
Sir  John  Lawrence  to  Dost  Mohammed  in  1855  and  1856  at  Jum- 
rud,  and  afterwards  to  Shere  Ali  as  the  last  act  of  his  Viceroyalty 
in  1869,  had  been  endorsed   by  Lord  Mayo  at  Umballa  and  had 


540  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

been  renewed,  with  still  more  explicit  assurances  by  Lord  North- 
brook,  at  Simla  in  1873.  And  if  Shere  Ali  was  still  dissatisfied,  it 
was  not  because  he  had  failed  to  get  anything  for  which  he  had  a 
right  to  ask,  but  because  he  had  asked  for  pledges  which  would 
certainly  have  drawn  us  into  the  vortex  of  the  internal  politics  of 
Afghanistan,  and  might,  ultimately,  have  landed  us  in  a  war  with 
Russia,  a  war  which  was  neither  of  the  Russians'  nor  our  own,  but 
simply  of  the  Afghans'  seeking.  In  any  case,  the  Ameer's  Agent 
went  away  from  Simla  directly  feeling  assured  that  we  would  never 
attempt  to  force  an  envoy  upon  his  master,  that  we  did  not  covet  a 
foot  of  his  territory,  and  that  if  he  would  take  our  advice  on  his 
foreign  relations,  we  would  support  him  first  by  our  diplomacy,  and 
ultimately  by  our  arms,  against  aggression  from  without.  More 
than  this  we  could  not  have  fairly  given.  With  less  it  would  have 
been  unnatural  if  he  had  been  content.  If  Shere  Ali  was  still,  like 
Ahab,  '  heavy  and  displeased,'  it  was  as  much  because  he  was  out 
of  humour  with  himself  as  because  he  was  out  of  humour  with  us. 
The  melancholy  and  moodiness  of  Saul  were  once  again  upon  him, 
and,  like  Saul,  he  believed  that  they  of  his  own  household  were 
his  most  dangerous  foes.  Yet  he  took  our  advice.  He  swallowed 
the  somewhat  bitter  pill  of  the  Seistan  arbitration,  he  forwarded 
the  complimentary  letters  of  General  Kaufman  to  our  native  agent 
with  perfect  openness,  and  in  1873  there  was  no  quarrel  between 
us,  nor  any  prospect  of  one. 

But  in  1874  came  a  change  of  Ministry  in  England,  and  with  it, 
the  first  symptoms  of  a  change  in  our  frontier  policy  towards 
Afghanistan.  Lord  Salisbury  was  now  once  more  Secretary  of 
State  for  India,  and  with  his  accession  to  office  he  seemed  to  throw 
to  the  winds  all  the  maxims  and  principles  of  frontier  policy  which 
Lord  Cranborne  had  held  most  dear.  No  doubt,  many  things 
had  happened  since  1866  ;  but  nothing  connected  with  the  advance 
of  Russia  which  had  not  been  foreseen,  nothing  which  the  policy 
that  was  then  approved  by  him,  had  not  been  laid  down  to  meet. 
All  the  fundamental  conditions  of  the  Central  Asian  problem  were 
the  same.  The  Afghan  character  was  the  same  ;  the  Afghan  fron- 
tier was  the  same  ;  the  eternal  mountains  were  the  same  ;  the 
Scinde  desert  and  the  barren  steppes  of  Central  Asia  were  the  same; 
the  poverty  of  the  Indian  population  was  the  same  ;  the  principles 
of  moderation,  justice,  and  good  faith  were  still  the  same.  Why 
then  the  change  ? 

Lord  Salisbury  was  soon  afterwards  to  give  the  sound  advice  to 
those  who  feared  a  Russian  invasion  of  India,  that  they  would  do 


1869-79  LAST   YEARS   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  54I 

well  to  study  maps  upon  a  large  scale.  The  advance  of  Russia, 
therefore,  could  not  in  itself  account  for  the  sudden  and  complete 
reversal  of  the  policy  which  had  been  pursued  by  successive  Vice- 
roys and  Ministers  of  State,  himself  amongst  the  number,  and  one 
of  the  ablest  of  them  all.  How  then,  was  it  brought  about  ?  I  will 
try  to  answer  the  question  and  to  trace  the  metamorphosis. 

In  June  1874,  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  who  was  then  a  member  of  Lord 
Cranborne's  Council,  came  to  the  front  once  more  as  an  advocate 
of  that  '  forward  policy '  which  had  been  tried  and  condemned 
thirty  years  before.  In  an  able  letter,  which  was  nominally  ad- 
dressed to  Sir  John  Kaye,  he  advocated  the  immediate  occupation 
of  Quetta  ;  the  construction  of  a  railway  across  the  desert  to  the 
Bolan  Pass — by  peaceable  arrangement,  if  possible,  but  if  not,  by 
the  strong  arm  ;  the  placing  of  English  agents  at  Herat,  Candahar, 
and — let  it  be  specially  noted — at  Cab  id ;  the  establishment  of  a 
'  Perfect  Intelligence  Department '  in  Afghanistan,  and,  if  possible, 
of  our  preponderating  influence  throughout  the  country.  These 
proposals,  it  has  been  reserved  for  him  to  discover  in  1881,  were 
in  no  way  aggressive  proposals,  but  were  dictated  in  a  spirit  of  pure 
philanthropy,  for  the  good  alike  of  the  Afghans  and  ourselves  ! 

This  letter  was  circulated  among  the  members  of  the  Indian 
Council,  and  was  afterwards  sent  by  Lord  Salisbury  to  Lord  Law- 
rence at  Brockett  Hall,  for  his  opinion  on  it. 

On  November  4  Lord  Lawrence  wrote  a  masterly  reply,  in  which, 
after  alluding  to  his  personal  knowledge  of  the  Afghan  character 
and  the  Afghan  frontier,  he  pointed  out  that  the  policy  advocated 
by  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  so  far  from  stopping  the  advance  of  Russia, 
would  be  likely  to  facilitate  and  accelerate  it  ;  that  it  would  lead  to 
difficulties  and  complications  such  as  we  had  experienced  in  1838, 
and  that  it  would,  in  this  way,  prove  ruinous  to  the  financed  of 
India  ;  that  the  occupation  of  Quetta  meant  nothing  except  as  part 
of  a  policy  of  advance  to  Candahar  and  Herat  ;  that  it  would  be 
costly  ;  that  it  would  be  unsafe  ;  that  it  would  inevitably  arouse 
the  suspicions  of  the  Ameer  as  the  first  step  towards  the  invasion 
of  his  country  ;  that  the  presence  of  British  officers  in  Afghanistan 
must,  in  the  long  run,  turn  the  Afghans  against  us  ;  that  they 
would  be  got  rid  of  by  Afghan  methods  ;  that  assassination  would 
be  followed  by  war,  and  that  again  by  occupation  or  annexation. 
As  regards  the  advance  of  Russia  with  hostile  intention,  while  he 
deprecated  giving  her  any  needless  offence,  or  taking  any  fidgety 
precautions,  he  would  adopt  such  measures  from  time  to  time  as 
prudence  might  dictate  ;  but  'the  great  point,' he  added,  'in  this 


542  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

matter  is,  that  Russia  should  understand  that  England  is  prepared 
to  defend  her  hold  in  India  at  any  cost.  Nothing  short  of  this 
will  suffice  if  the  march  of  events  brings  Russia  towards  the  fron- 
tier of  India  ;  but  that  conviction  of  England's  resolution  will,  I 
believe,  prove  quite  effectual. ' 

Two  letters  to  Lord  Lawrence  written  to  him  by  his  two  suc- 
cessors in  the  Viceroyalty,  Lord  Mayo  and  Lord  Northbrook,  I 
think  I  may  with  advantage  insert  here,  as  giving  their  views  on  the 
Afghan  question  in  an  authentic  form,  and  proving  beyond  a  doubt 
the  '  continuity '  of  policy  towards  Afghanistan  which  was  so  soon 
and  so  rudely  to  be  broken  off. 

Umballa  :  April  4,  1869. 

My  dear  Lord  Lawrence, — Allow  me  in  the  first  place  to  congratulate 
you  most  sincerely  on  tlie  well-merited  honour  which  Her  Majesty  has 
bestowed  upon  you,  the  news  of  which  reached  me  yesterday  by  tele- 
graph. I  most  lieartily  hope  that  you  may  live  long  in  health  and 
strength  to  enjoy  your  well-earned  rank,  and  what  I  know  you  value 
m'ore — the  esteem  and  regard  of  your  countrymen. 

I  am  sure  that  you  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  everything  connected 
with  the  events  of  the  week  here  went  off  very  well.  The  Ameer  and 
his  minister  wanted  a  great  many  things  that  they  will  not  get,  but  I  ad- 
hered rigidly  to  the  line  laid  down,  so  no  treaty  or  engagements,  I  trust, 
may  hereafter  embarrass  us,  but  cordial  countenance  and  some  addi- 
tional support  as  it  may  be  advisable.  We  have  given  some  more  arms 
and  six  heavy  guns  ;  he  is  to  have,  as  soon  as  he  arrives  at  Cabul,  the  re- 
mainder of  your  twelve  lacs,  but  we  are  all  strongly  of  opinion  that  we 
shall  have  to  give  him  some  more  money  soon,  if  we  are  to  do  him  any 
real  good.  He  has  evidently  a  tough  job  before  him  in  Turkestan,  and  as 
Azim  levied  a  year's  revenue  in  advance,  he  has  not  much  to  look  to  from 
Afghan  taxes  till  autumn.  I  hope  that  we  shall  be  supported  in  the  line 
we  have  taken.  I  believe  that  when  you  sent  Shere  Ali  the  money  and 
arnis  last  December  you  laid  the  foundation  of  a  policy  which  will  be  ot 
the  greatest  use  to  us  hereafter.  I  wish  to  continue  it.  If,  therefore, 
you  have  an  opportunity,  I  hope  you  will  express  your  approval  of  the 
line  we  have  taken.  I  am  certain  that  it  is  safe,  prudent,  and  right.  I 
am  very  glad  to  hear  that  you  are  better  since  your  arrival  in  Europe, 
and  I  hope  and  trust  by  this  time  your  health  is  fully  established. 

Ever  faithfully  yours. 
Mayo. 

Five  years  later  Lord  Northbrook  writes  as  follows  on  much  the 
same  subject,  but  with  especial  reference  to  the  aspect  which  it 
might  assume  if  the  'erroneous  and  dangerous  notions'  of  Sir 
Bartle  Frere  received  any  countenance  from  yet  higher  authority 
at  home. 


1869-79  LAST   YEARS   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  543 

Government  House,  Calcutta  :  December  iS,  1874. 

My  dear  Lord  Lawrence, — I  must  write  a  line  to  say  with  what  satis- 
faction I  have  read  your  memorandum  on  the  Central  Asian  question, 
a  copy  of  which  I  received  yesterday  from  Lord  Salisbury. 

Sir  B.  Frere's  letter,  of  which  he  sent  me  a  copy,  seemed  to  me  to  be 
full  of  erroneous  and  dangerous  notions,  and  I  am  very  glad  to  find  that 
you  have  so  completely  disposed  of  it. 

Your  experience  enables  you  to  do  this  witli  much  greater  authority 
than  I  could. 

I  do  not  know  tiiat  there  is  anything  in  your  memorandum  with  which 
I  differ. 

Sir  B.  Frere  was  mistaken  in  supposing  that  Lord  Mayo  altered  the 
policy  in  regard  to  Afghanistan.  He  did  not  even,  as  you  suppose,  ad- 
vocate a  fixed  subsidy  to  be  given  to  the  Ameer  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  ex- 
pressed an  opinion  adverse  to  such  an  arrangement,  preferring,  with  you, 
to  have  our  hands  quite  free  to  act  as  occasion  might  demand. 

In  more  recent  negotiations  I  have  been  very  careful  to  explain  in  the 
plainest  language  that  we  must  be  the  judges  as  to  any  assistance  in 
money  or  arms  which  we  may  think  it  right  to  give. 

You  are  perfectly  correct  in  supposing  that  the  objection  to  our  send- 
ing English  officers  into  Afghanstan  is  still  strong.  In  fact,  the  course 
which  Sir  B.  Frere  advocates  could  not  be  followed  without  alienating 
Afghanistan,  and  it  is  very  possible  that  it  would  involve  either  a  war 
or  an  abortive  negotiation. 

Yours  very  truly, 

NORTHBROOK. 

Sir  Bartle  Frere  replied  to  Lord  Lawrence's  Memorandum  in  a 
much  more  lengthy  paper,  dated  January  11,  1875,  ^^d  Lord  Law- 
rence was  about,  once  more,  to  slay  him  in  argument,  when  Lord 
Salisbury  intervened  and  begged  him  to  hold  his  hand.  He  had 
gone  over  to  the  views  of  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  and  it  was  obviously  de- 
sirable, under  such  circumstances,  that  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  as  he  has 
contrived  to  do  on  at  least  one  notable  occasion  since  then,  should 
have  the  last  word.  At  about  the  same  time,  on  January  22,  with- 
out having  previously  consulted  the  Government  of  India,  Lord 
Salisbury  sent  the  first  of  those  disastrous  despatches  to  Lord 
Northbrook  which  bade  him  begin  to  undo  the  work  of  thirty  years 
and  in  the  direction  recommended  by  Sir  Bartle  Frere. 

Lord  Northbrook,  supported  by  the  whole  weight  of  his  Council, 
which  contained  such  well-known  names  as  those  of  Lord  Napier 
of  Magdala,  Sir  Henry  Norman,  Sir  William  Muir,  Sir  Ashley 
Eden,  and  Sir  Arthur  Hobhouse,  and  supported  also  by  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of  the  Punjab,  and  by  all  the  local  authorities 
whom  he  consulted,  stoutly  resisted  the  proposals  of  Lord  Salisbury, 


544  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

and  for  a  whole  year  managed  to  fight  them  off  by  argument  and  by 
pleas  for  delay,  till  at  last,  when  the  instructions  became  peremptory, 
he  resigned  his  high  office  rather  than  carry  out  measures  of  which 
he  and  all  who  knew  the  facts  of  the  case,  so  deeply  disapproved. 

A  more  supple  instrument  lay  ready  to  Lord  Salisbury's  hand, 
and  Lord  Lytton  went  to  India  pledged  to  carry  out  the  new  and 
fatal  policy.  Before  he  started,  Lord  Lawrence  called  upon  him, 
and  the  veteran  Governor-General  poured  forth  freely  to  him,  as  it 
was  his  wont  to  do  to  all  inquirers,  all  the  wealth  of  his  Indian 
knowledge.  Determined  to  lead  up  to  the  point  on  which  he  had 
a  shrewd  suspicion  that  his  advice  was  most  needed,  and  on  which 
it  would  be  likely  to  be  last  asked  or  acted  on,  he  said  point-blank, 
'Then  about  the  frontier  policy  ?'  *0h,  thank  you,'  replied  Lord 
Lytton,  '  I  know  your  views  on  that  question,'  and  so  avoided  a 
discussion  which  might  have  been  inconvenient.  A  year  or  two 
later,  when  the  natural  frontier  of  India  had  been  already  crossed, 
and  the  'scientific  frontier 'had  been  invented.  Lord  Lytton,  on 
sending  home  Sir  George  Colley  to  the  India  Office,  did  so  with  the 
pregnant  words  which  were  passed  round  the  Indian  Council,  '  I 
send  you  home  my  Military  Secretary,  whose  opinion  on  the  frontier 
is  worth  that  of  twenty  Lawrences.'  Lord  Lytton  was  ready  enough 
to  vouch  for  his  Private  Secretary's  knowledge,  a  man  who,  till  he 
was  sent  to  Quetta  to  mature  the  aggressive  policy  in  the  previous 
year,'  had  never  been  near  the  frontier,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
knew  nothing  of  any  Oriental  people,  of  any  Oriental  language,  of 
any  of  the  habits  or  feelings  of  the  races  concerned.  But  who  will 
vouch  for  Lord  Lytton's  ?  The  man  whose  '  opinion  on  the  frontier 
was  worth  that  of  twenty  Lawrences '  was  a  chivalrous  and  dashing 
but  perfectly  reckless  officer,  whose  infatuation  was  to  cost  England 
dear  and  not  in  Afghanistan  alone,  for  he  was  to  imperil  the  safety 
of  an  English  army  on  more  than  one  battle-field  in  South  Africa, 
and  was  to  throw  his  life  away — the  life  of  a  good  soldier,  but  a 
bad  General — on  the  Majuba  heights.  On  his  arrival  in  England, 
Sir  George  Colley  sought  and  obtained  an  interview  with  Lord 
Lawrence,  and  pressed  his  crude  notions  upon  the  veteran  statesman. 

'  It  seems  strange  that  no  one  in  India  or  in  England  should  have  pointed 
out  the  grave  impropriety  of  Lord  Lytton's  sending  his  own  private  secretary  on 
such  an  errand  to  Quetta.  The  Private  Secretary  is  the  Viceroy's  own  private 
servant.  lie  had  no  bureau  or  portefcuillc  as  the  French  would  say.  He  is 
appointed  by  tlie  Viceroy  alone,  not  the  Viceroy  in  Council,  just  as  the  family 
doctor  is  appointed.  What  would  have  been  thought  of  Lord  Lawrence  had  he 
sent  Dr.  Hathaway  or  Mr.  James  Gordon  to  Quetta  or  Cabul  or  Teheran? 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  545 

Lord  Lawrence  liked  him  much  personally,  but  when  he  left  the 
room  after  a  conversation  of  some  hours,  remarked, '  Well,  I  do  not 
think  that  I  have  heard  a  single  new  fact  or  new  argument  from  him.' 

It  was  the  story  of  Phormio  and  Hannibal  over  again.  During 
the  residence  of  the  Carthaginian  hero,  then  a  houseless  exile,  at 
the  court  of  Antiochus  at  Ephesus,  he  was  invited  by  his  empty- 
headed  host,  the  king  of  kings,  to  listen  to  a  lecture  by  Phormio, 
the  philosopher,  on  military  affairs.  Phormio,  accordingly,  dis- 
coursed for  several  hours  on  military  affairs  in  general,  and  the 
duty  of  a  commander-in-chief  in  particular.  His  audience  were  en- 
thusiastic, and  turning  to  Hannibal,  who  had  been  listening  patiently 
throughout,  asked  him  triumphantly  what  he  thought  of  their 
philosopher.  '  Verily,'  replied  Hannibal,  *  I  have  seen  many  dotards 
in  my  time,  but  surely  this  is  the  greatest  dotard  of  them  all.'  Sir 
George'  Colley  was  anything  but  a*  dotard,'  but  Lord  Lawrence  was 
certainly  not  more  likely  to  gain  any  knowledge  of  the  Afghan  ques- 
tion from  him  than  was  Hannibal  of  the  art  of  war  from  Phormio. 

Lord  Lytton  landed  in  India  in  April  1876,  charged  with  definite 
instructions  to  find  a  pretext  if  he  could,  and  if  not,  then  to  invent 
one,  for  the  despatch  of  a  temporary  embassy  to  Cabul,  which  was 
afterwards  to  be  made  the  means  of  establishing  a  permanent 
mission  within  the  frontiers  of  Afghanistan.  It  was  a  task  not  for 
a  statesman,  but  for  a  diplomatist,  and  that,  too,  one  not  of  the 
highest  type.  But  there  were  difficulties  in  the  way  which  not  even 
Lord  Lytton's  high-handed  threats  to  *  wipe  Afghanistan  altogether 
out  of  the  map  '  in  concert  with  Russia,  nor  his  complimentary 
comparison  of  it  to  '  a  pipkin  between  two  iron  pots,*  could  at  once 
remove.  Accordingly,  his  first  practical  step  was  that  which  had 
been  recommended  so  persistently  by  Sir  Bartle  Frere  and  his 
allies,  the  occupation  of  Quetta,  an  advanced  post,  two  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  beyond  its  nearest  supports,  which  was  to  be  ap- 
proached first  over  a  burning  desert  which  is  swept,  during  a  portion 
of  the  year,  by  the  '  blast  of  death  ;  *  and  then,  as  Sir  Harry 
Lumsden  described  it,  through  'a  long,  difficult,  and  in  many 
places  waterless  pass,  flanked  all  the  way  by  wild  and  warlike 
tribes.'  This  was  the  first  step  in  the  policy  of  aggression,  and 
was  taken  in  January  and  February  1877. 

Next  came  the  '  Peshawur  Conference  '  between  Nur  Mohammed, 
the  representative  of  the  Ameer,  and  Sir  Lewis  Pelly,  the  mouth- 
piece of  Lord  Lytton.  And  it  is  difficult  even  now,  at  this  distance 
of  time,  to  read  unmoved  the  earnest  appeals  of  the  Ameer  to  the 
faith  of  treaties,  and  to  the  promises  and  untarnished  honour  of 

VOL.  II. — 35 


54^  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

Lord  Lawrence,  Lord  Mayo,  and  Lord  Northbrook  ;  finally,  the 
piteous  cry  for  mercy,  when  the  appeal  for  justice  was  unavailing, 
in  order  to  ward  off  that  which  Lord  Lytton  laid  down  as  a  sine  qua 
lion  of  any  further  negotiations,  the  residence  of  British  officers  in 
Afghanistan.  *  Matters,'  said  the  Afghan  envoy,  '  have  now  come 
to  a  crisis,  and  the  situation  is  a  grave  one.  This  is  the  best  op- 
portunity for  a  settlement,  and  God  only  knows  the  future.  .  .  . 
The  British  nation  is  great  and  powerful,  and  the  Afghan  people 
cannot  resist  its  power  ;  but  the  people  are  self-willed  and  inde- 
pendent, and  prize  their  homes  above  their  life.  .  .  .  You  must  not 
impose  upon  us  a  burden  which  we  cannot  bear  ;  if  you  overload 
us,  the  responsibility  rests  with  you.'  When  asked  what  the  burden 
to  which  he  alluded  was,  he  at  once  replied,  '  The  residence  of 
British  officers  on  the  frontiers  of  Afghanistan.'  *  We  mistrust  you, 
and  fear  you  will  write  all  sorts  of  reports  about  us,  which  will,  some 
day,  be  brought  forward  against  us,  and  lead  to  your  taking  the 
control  of  our  affairs  out  of  our  hands.  .  .  .  The  people  of  Afghan- 
istan have  a  dread  of  this  proposal,  and  it  is  firmly  fixed  in  their 
minds  and  deeply  rooted  in  their  hearts,  that  if  Englishmen  or  other 
Europeans  once  set  foot  in  their  country,  it  will  sooner  or  later  pass 
out  of  their  hands.'  Finding  that  the  Ameer  stood  firm,  as  well 
he  might,  on  this  point,  Lord  Lytton  abruptly  broke  off  the  confer- 
ence. He  '  repudiated  all  liabilities  of  the  British  Government 
towards  the  Ameer,'  and  having  told  him  that  he  should  hencefor- 
ward feel  free  to  strengthen  the  frontiers  of  British  India  without 
further  reference  to  him,  shortly  afterwards  withdrew  his  native 
envoy  altogether  from  his  court.     This  was  step  number  two. 

Thus  the  plot  was  advancing  apace  ;  and  if  after  reading  the  rec- 
ord in  the  blue-book  of  the  conversations  which  took  place  between 
the  Asiatic  and  the  European,  between  the  Mohammedan  and  the 
Christian,  between  the  representative  of  semi-barbarism  and  of  the 
highest  civilisation,  we  ask  ourselves  on  which  side  was  the  greater 
forbearance,  the  greater  dignity,  the  greater  respect  for  the  faith  of 
treaties  and  for  the  common  rights  of  humanity,  we  are  compelled 
to  answer  that  it  was  not  on  the  side  of  the  Christian. 

As  thick  a  veil  as  possible  was  thrown  over  the  whole  story  of  the 
Peshawur  Conference  by  the  Indian  and  English  Governments, 
and  when  questions  were  asked  in  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  very 
little  explanation  was  given  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  that  little 
of  a  most  inaccurate  and  misleading  kind.  Of  course,  it  was  not 
likely  but  that  more  information  than  the  Government  were  willing 
to  vouchsafe  should  not,  in  some  form  or  other,  have  been  reaching 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  547 

the  ears  of  the  veteran  Governor- General,  whose  conduct  and  policy 
towards  the  Afghans  had  been  so  different ;  and  I  am,  once  again, 
able  to  quote  here  a  few  graphic  lines  written  by  the  lady  who,  as 
his  Private  Secretary,  saw  perhaps  more  than  anyone  else  of  Lord 
Lawrence  during  this  period,  and  was,  throughout  this  melancholy 
business,  to  be  to  him  in  the  place  of  both  hands  and  eyes. 

It  was  early  (she  says)  in  1878  that  the  fear  of  Afghan  troubles  made 
itself  felt  in  the  library  at  Queen's  Gate  Gardens,  Numerous  were  the 
meetings  of  old  Indians  held  there  to  discuss  the  coming  events  which 
were  casting  their  shadows  before  ;  and  the  piles  of  blue-books  which 
had  not  merely  to  be  read,  but  to  be  marked,  learned  (literally),  and  in- 
wardly digested,  were  appalling.  Never  before  had  .1  understood  the 
cost  of  a  good  opinion.  It  was  a  lesson  for  life  ;  no  judgment  passed 
until  all  that  could  be  found  on  the  subject  in  point  had  been  diligently 
searched  out  and  conscientiously  studied,  the  brains  of  those  supposed 
to  know  anything  of  the  matter  carefully  picked,  and,  finally,  the  con- 
clusion arrived  at,  given  in  plain,  unexaggerated  words.  It  was  whilst 
we  were  at  Stonehouse  that  the  news  of  the  Chamberlain  Mission  and 
its  abrupt  conclusion  reached  England,  and  aroused  Lord  Lawrence  to 
renewed  vigour.  He  had  not  been  well  during  the  autumn.  It  was 
some  time  before  he  could  make  up  his  mind  to  take  any  decided  course 
in  public  affairs  ;  but  once  resolved,  nothing  could  exceed  his  energy. 
No  amount  of  reading  aloud  to  him  fatigued  him,  but  the  difficulty  which 
he  found  in  dictating  everything  which  had  to  be  written  was  very  great. 
The  abuse  to  which  he  was  subjected  in  the  newspapers  and  by  anony- 
mous letters  did  not  affect  him  much.  His  one  desire  was  to  stop  an 
unjust  war,  or  at  least  to  delay  it  until  people  could  better  see  what  they 
were  rushing  into.  He  seemed  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  party  mo- 
tives could  be  brought  into  a  matter  of  right  and  wrong.  He  was  neither 
'  Liberal '  nor  '  Conservative  '  in  his  Afghan  politics,  but  an  honest  states- 
man. He  never  believed  in  the  '  Insult  to  our  Envoy,'  he  never  believed 
in  the  '  Russian  Scare,'  he  never  believed  in  the  '  integrity  of  the  motives' 
of  the  Viceroy  of  India,  and  his  prompters  at  home  ;  but  he  did  believe 
that  the  impending  war  would  be  an  act  of  cruel  injustice  to  the  Afghans, 
and  the  cause  of  great  financial  difficulties  in  India  ;  that  the  nation  was 
being  hurried  and  incited  thereto  by  sham  insults  and  scares,  and  in  this 
belief  he  continued  to  the  end  of  his  life.  How  his  words  have  since 
been  verified  is  now  patent  to  all. 

For  a  time  it  is  possible  that  the  worst  misgivings  of  two  ex- 
Governors-General,  Lord  Lawrence  and  Lord  Northbrook,  and  of 
three  ex-Secretaries  of  State  for  India,  Lord  Halifax,  Lord  Ripon, 
and  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  all  of  whom  were  present  at  the  time,  had 
been  partially  allayed  by  the  strangely  misleading  answer  given  by 
Lord  Salisbury  on  June  15,  1877,  to  a  point-blank  question  of  the 
Duke  of  Argyll's,  whether  any  serious  change  was  contemplated  in 


548  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

the  policy  hitherto  observed  towards  Afghanistan.  It  will  hardly 
be  believed  by  subsequent  generations,  if  they  know  the  full  facts 
of  the  case,  that  the  answer  given  by  Lord  Salisbury,  the  responsi- 
ble minister  of  the  Crown,  and  a  man  fitted  by  his  abilities  to  fill 
and  to  adorn  any  post,  was  that  no  attempt  had  been  made  to  force 
an  envoy  upon  the  Ameer  at  Cabul,  that  our  relations  with  him  had 
not,  since  last  year,  undergone  any  material  change,  and  that  his 
feelings  were,  in  no  way,  more  embittered  towards  the  British 
Government.  But  the  answer  effected  its  object.  It  stopped  further 
questions,  it  burked  all  discussion  in  Parliament  till  the  session  was 
over,  and  then  the  Government  was  free  to  complete  the  work 
which  it  had  set  in  train.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  dwell  on 
these  circumstances,  unsavoury  though  they  are,  if  we  are  to  esti- 
mate aright  Lord  Lawrence's  subsequent  action  ;  for  it  is  at  least 
possible  that  if  the  simple  truth  had  been  told  in  June,  the  debate 
in  Parliament  which  must  have  ensued,  would  have  brought  out  so 
clearly  the  opinions  of  every  one  who  was  an  authority  on  the  sub- 
ject, that  the  eyes  of  the  Government  would  have  been  opened  to 
the  blind  folly  of  the  course  which  they  were  pursuing,  and  that 
the  final  steps  which  plunged  us  into  the  miseries  and  dangers  of 
another  Afghan  war  would  never  have  been  taken. 

In  the  previous  spring,  our  relations  with  Russia  hod,  by  whose- 
soever fault,  been  strained  almost  to  the  very  verge  of  war  ;  and  in 
order,  it  would  seem,  to  effect  a  diversion,  and  to  frighten  us  in  the 
quarter  in  which,  by  bringing  Indian  troops  to  Europe,  we  had 
attempted  to  frighten  them,  the  Russians  now  despatched  an  em- 
bassy under  General  Abramoff  to  Cabul.  The  Ameer,  bullied  and 
browbeaten  by  Lord  Lytton,  who  had  broken  off,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, all  diplomatic  relations  with  him,  and  still  threatened  with 
that  visitation  from  English  officers  which  successive  Governors- 
General  had  promised  never  to  impose  upon  him,  fought  off  the 
Russian  proposal  as  long  as  possible,  and  at  last,  with  extreme  re- 
luctance, consented  to  receive  the  embassy.  The  despatch  of  that 
embassy  was,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a  perfectly  legitimate  act  on  tlie 
part  of  Russia,  when  war  with  England  seemed  imminent.  It 
ceased  to  be  legitimate  the  moment  that  peaceful  relations  were 
restored.  In  any  case,  as  soon  as  the  treaty  was  signed,  the  En- 
glish Government  was  in  a  position  to  remind  Russia  of  her  pre- 
vious agreement,  and  with  the  whole  of  the  country — Liberal  as  well 
as  Conservative — the  Duke  of  Argyll,  Lord  Lawrence,  and  Lord 
Northbrook,  as  well  as  Lord  Salisbury  and  Lord  Cranbrook  at  its 
back— to  call  upon  her  to  withdraw  altogether  from  the  country  in 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS   OF  LORD   LAWRENCE.  549 

which  we  had  warned  her  that  she  should  not,  and  she  had  prom- 
ised us  that  she  would  not,  attempt  to  exercise  any  influence. 
This  was  the  bold,  the  upright,  the  only  honourable  course  ;  and 
in  this  I  know  for  certain,  from  a  letter  written  by  Lord  Lawrence 
to  me  commenting  on  one  which  I  had  myself  written  to  the 
*  Times  '  in  favour  of  that  step,  he  would  himself  have  warmly 
concurred.  The  Russians  would,  in  that  case,  have  withdrawn  at 
once,  as  they  did  shortly  afterwards  withdraw  from  Afghanistan  ; 
we  should  have  won  a  bloodless  victory  ;  and,  what  is  equally  impor- 
tant, we  should  have  shown  the  Afghans  that  we  were  in  command 
of  the  situation,  and  that  we  were  as  sincere  in  our  determination 
not  to  interfere  ourselves  in  their  internal  concerns  as  we  were  not 
to  allow  any  one  else  do  so  either.  Instead  of  this  we  must  bite 
and  maul  the  weak,  while  we  contented  ourselves  with  barking,  or 
with  hardly  even  barking,  at  the  strong.  We  attacked  those  who 
had  done  us  no  harm,  while  we  allowed  the  real  offender  to  get  off 
scot-free.  If  we  had  only  given  the  Russians  rope  enough  to  hang 
themselves — if,  that  is,  we  had  given  them  time,  the  Afghans  would 
infallibly  have  turned  against  them,  and  they,  not  we,  would  have 
been  looked  upon  as  the  enemies  of  Afghan  independence. 

Instead  of  that,  we  must  servilely  follow  the  example  of  Russia, 
and  that,  too,  without  taking  any  of  her  precautions.  And  such  was 
Lord  Lytton's  knowledge  of  Eastern  courtesies,  or  his  respect  for 
them,  that  the  mission  under  Sir  Neville  Chamberlain  was  actually 
despatched  for  Cabul  without  any  inquiry  whether  it  would  be  wel- 
comed by  the  Ameer,  or  even  whether  it  would  be  allowed  to  pass. 
Of  course,  it  was  turned  back  from  Ali  Musjid  by  the  officer  in 
command,  but,  as  Major  Cavignari  himself  admitted,  and  as  every- 
body now  knows,  with  the  utmost  possible  courtesy  on  the  part  of 
all  concerned.  But  it  gave  the  opportunity  for  which  Lord  Lytton 
had  long  been  waiting.  Telegrams  were  sent  to  England  to  the 
effect  that  the  officer  had  grossly  insulted  our  envoy.  The  pugna- 
cious spirit  of  the  country  was  aroused,  and  war  was  all  but  declared. 
Could  anything  be  done  to  stop  it  ? 

Ac  veluti  magno  in  populo  quum  sspe  coorta  est 
Seditio,  sasvitque  animis  ignobile  vulgus  ;' 
Jamque  faces  et  saxa  volant ;  furor  arma  ministrat. 
Turn,  pietate  gravem  ac  meritis  si  forte  virum  quern 
Conspexere,  silent  arrectisque  auribus  aclstant, 
llle  regit  dictis  animos  et  pectora  mulcet. 

There  was  one  man,  and  perhaps  only  one  in  the  country  who. 


550  LIFE   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

from  the  weight  of  his  character,  from  his  reverence  for  the  right, 
from  his  profound  knowledge  of  the  subject,  from  his  splendid 
services  in  India,  could  hope,  even  now,  to  gain  a  hearing,  and  to 
have  a  chance,  a  small  one  it  is  true,  but  still  a  chance,  of  stopping 
even  now  the  mischief.     Lord  Lawrence  had  gone  down,  as  I  have 
related,  for  his   autumn   holiday  near  Broadstairs    in   the   Isle   of 
Thanet,  and  all  the  motives  which  usually  operate  most  powerfully 
on  men  would  seem  to  have  conspired  to  drive  him  to  hold  his  tongue. 
His  peculiar  position  as  an  ex-Viceroy  of  course  called  him  to  think 
once,  twice,  and  thrice  before  he  did  anything  which  might  em- 
barrass the  existing  Viceroy  in  his  time  of  trouble,  even  though  that 
trouble  was  self-sought.     His  advanced  age,  his  feeble  frame,  his 
blindness,  his  inability  any  longer  either  to  read  or  to  write,  were 
so  many  valid  excuses    for  not    entering   on   an    almost   hopeless 
crusade  against  a  strong  popular  feeling,  against  a  patriotic  cry, 
against  a  Government  strong  in  its  parliamentary  majority,  and  in 
the  favour  of  the  Court  and  of  the  Crown.     It  was  certain  that  he 
would  incur  all  but  universal  obloquy  ;  that  his  motives  would  be 
misinterpreted,  that  he  would  be  accused  of  party  feeling,  of  prej- 
udice, of  want  of  spirit,  of  want  of  patriotism,  of  all  the  influences, 
in  fact,  which  had  never  had  a  particle  of  influence  upon  him  ;  that 
his  previous  services  would  be  forgotten,  or  made  light  of  ;  that  the 
whole  of  his  policy  would,  for  the  time,  be  discredited,  and  that  he, 
who  had  been  hailed  the  chief  saviour  of  an  empire,  would  die,  as 
in  the  course  of  nature  he  soon  must,  misliked  and  suspected  by 
those  for  whom  he  had  saved  it.     Many  of  his  relations,  many  of 
his  friends,  private  and   political   alike,  bade  him  think  of  these 
things  and  acquiesce  in  the  inevitable.     But  not  so  thought  John 
Lawrence,  who  '  did  his  duty  to  the  last.'     He  saw  all  this  and  he 
deliberately  threw  it  aside.     He  felt  that  he  had  enjoyed  peculiar 
opportunities  for  forming  a  right  opinion  ;  he  felt  that  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  nation  were  rushing  blindfold  into  a  quagmire  ;  and, 
in  my  judgment,  there  is  no  single  step  in  the  whole  of  his  heroic 
life  which  was  taken  from  purer  motives,  which  showed  a  more 
lively  sense  of  honour,  a  more  genuine  patriotism,  a  more  unflinch- 
ing moral  courage  ;  in  a  word,  which  is  more  characteristic  of  the 
man,  than  this.     Here  is  his  first  letter  to  the  'Times.'     It  has  no 
nicely  turned  sentences,  no  attempts  at  fine  writing  ;   but  it  lifts 
the  subject  at  once,  beyond  the  range  of  party  feeling,  into  higher, 
and  purer  air,  and  it  will  for  ever  stand  forth,  like  the  letters  which 
he  wrote  at  the  beginning  of  the  Mutiny,  as  a  monument  of  his 
sense  of  justice,  his  sagacity,  his  energy,  his  patriotism. 


1869-79  LAST   YEARS   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  55 1 

Afghanistan. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  '  Tim-'s, ' 

Sir, — The  news  from  Peshawur  which  appearefl  in  the  ■  Times  '  of  the 
23rd  inst.,  telling  us  that  the  Ameer  ot  Cabul  had  icfused  to  receive  the 
proposed  Mission  on  its  way  to  his  capital,  and  haa  forced  Major  Cavag- 
nari  to  turn  back  from  Ali  Musjid,  is,  no  doubt,  a  serious  rebuff  to  the 
Government  of  India,  more  particularly  so  as  the  Mission  had  actually 
started.  ■  It  seems  to  me  to  have  been  a  serious  mistake  organising  a 
Mission  to  Cabul  before  we  had  ascertained  whether  Ameer  Shere  Ali 
was  prepared  to  receive  our  overtures  or  not,  and  a  still  greater  mistake 
despatching  the  Mission  until  we  had  received  his  consent  to  our  doing 
so.  Had  these  precautions  been  observed,  the  affront  which  we  have 
met  with  would  not  have  appeared  to  be  so  flagrant  as  it  now  does.  But, 
however  vexatious  is  the  Ameer's  conduct  in  this  matter,  it  ought  not  to 
lead  us  to  force  our  Mission  on  him  ;  still  less  should  it  induce  us  to  de- 
clare war  against  him.  It  appears  to  me  to  be  contrary  to  sound  policy 
that  we  should  resent  our  disappointment  by  force  of  arms  ;  for,  by  so 
doing,  we  play  the  enemy's  game  and  force  the  Afghans  into  a  union 
with  the  Russians. 

We  ought  not,  indeed,  to  be  surprised  that  the  Ameer  has  acted  as  he 
has  done.  From  the  time  of  the  Treaty  of  1857,  the  late  Ameer,  Dost 
Mohammed  Khan,  refused  to  allow  us  to  have  a  Mission  at  Cabul,  or 
even  to  send  one  there  as  a  temporary  arrangement,  solemnly  assuring 
us  that  such  a  step  would  lead  to  mischief  and  not  to  peaceful  relations 
with  the  Afghans.  We  accepted  his  excuses.  In  1869,  the  present 
Ameer  affirmed  the  same  policy.  Whatever  may  be  his  own  faults  and 
shortcomings,  he  has  never  concealed  from  us  his  views  on  this  subject. 
What  occurred  at  the  meeting  in  Peshawur  towards  the  end  of  1876 
between  the  Ameer's  agent  and  Sir  Lewis  Pelly  has  not  actually  tran- 
spired ;  but  I  believe  that  our  wishes  on  the  subject  of  a  Mission  to 
Cabul  were  at  that  time  reiterated,  though  in  vain. 

The  old  policy  was  to  bear  with  the  Afghans  so  far  as  we  could  rea- 
sonably do  so,  and  to  endeavour  by  kindness  and  conciliation  to  bring 
about  friendly  relations,  gradually  leading  them  to  see  that  their  interests 
and  ours  did  not  conflict.  Of  late,  however,  we  have  seemed  to  think 
that  we  understand  the  interests  of  the  Afghans  better  than  they  do 
themselves.  We  appear  to  think  that  we  can,  in  short,  force  our  policy 
on  them  without  their  taking  offence  at  such  conduct. 

What  are  we  to  gain  by  going  to  war  with  the  Ameer  ?  Can  we  de- 
throne him  without  turning  the  mass  of  his  countrymen  against  us  .'* 
Can  we  follow  the  policy  of  1838-39  without,  in  all  probability,  incurring 
similar  results  ?  If  we  succeed  in  driving  Shere  Ali  out  of  Cabul,  whom 
can  we  put  in  his  place  ?  And  how  are  we  to  insure  the  maintenance 
of  our  own  creature  on  the  throne,  except  by  occupying  the  country  ? 
And  when  is  such  an  occupation  to  terminate? 

I  have  no  doubt  that  we  can  clear  tlie  defiles  and  valleys  of  Afghanistan 


552  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

from  end  to  end  of  tlieir  defenders,  and  that  no  force  of  Afghans  could 
stand  against  our  troops  when  properly  brought  to  bear  against  them. 
The  country,  however,  consists  of  mountain  ranges  for  the  most  part 
broken  up  into  rugged  and  difficult  plateaux,  where  brave  men  standing 
on  the  defensive  have  considerable  advantages  ;  and  when  we  force  such 
positions  we  cannot  continue  to  hold  them. 

The  cost  of  invading  such  a  country  will  prove  very  great,  and  the 
means  for  so  doing  must  be  drawn  from  elsewhere.  The  country  held 
by  the  Ameer  can  afford  neither  tiie  money  nor  the  transport,  nor  even 
the  subsistence  in  adequate  quantity  for  the  support  of  the  invading 
army.  It  is  impossible  to  foresee  the  end  of  such  a  war,  and,  in  the 
meantime,  its  prosecution  would  utterly  ruin  the  finances  of  India. 

Such  are  the  political  and  military  considerations  which  lead  me  to 
raise  my  voice  against  the  present  policy  towards  the  Ameer  Shere  AH. 
Are  not  moral  considerations  also  very  strong  against  such  a  war  ? 
Have  not  the  Afghans  a  right  to  resist  our  forcing  a  Mission  on  them, 
bearing  in  mind  to  what  such  Missions  often  lead,  and  what  Burns"  Mis- 
sion in  1836  did  actually  bring  upon  them  ? 

I  have  heard  it  contended  that  no  nation  has  a  right  to  isolate  itself  in 
this  way,  and  refuse  to  have  intercourse  with  its  neighbours.  This  may 
be  a  reasonable  objection  among  civilized  nations,  but  ought  not  to  apply, 
I  submit,  between  civilised  Governments  on  the  one  hand  and  barbarous 
peoples  on  the  other. 

No  doubt.  Ameer  Shere  Ali  has  aggravated  his  offence  by  the  mode  in 
which  he  has  resisted  our  overtures,  more  particularly  in  the  threat  of 
his  Mir  Akhor  at  Ali  Musjid  to  shoot  Major  Cavagnari  if  he  did  not  turn 
back.  But  we  should  not  bear  too  hardly  on  the  Ameer  on  this  account.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  if  we  promise  to  give  up  forcing  a  Mission  on  him 
lie  would  make  any  apology  that  we  could  reasonably  call  for.  I  urge 
that  we  were  wrong,  in  the  outset,  in  our  policy  towards  the  Ameer  in 
many  instances  which  could  be  pointed  out,  and  therefore  ought  not  to 
be  over  hard  on  him  in  accepting  his  excuses.  I  insist  that  there  will  be 
no  real  dishonour  to  us  in  coming  to  terms  with  him  ;  whereas,  by  press- 
ing on  him  our  own  policy,  we  may  incur  most  serious  difficulties,  and 
even  disasters. 

The  last  telegrams  from  India  are  that  three  considerable  bodies  ot 
troops  are  to  be  concentrated,  one  at  Ouetta,  one  at  Thall,  on  the  river 
Koorum,  and  the  third  in  reserve  at  Mooltan,  as  what  are  called  '  pre- 
cautionary measures.'  I  should  call  them  very  offensive  measures.  The 
same  impulses  which  have  brought  us  into  the  present  complications  and 
troubles  will  almost  certainly  lead  us  to  still  more  decisive  movements, 
unless  very  speedily  checked  by  the  people  of  England. 

Yours  faithfully, 

Lawrence. 

Stonehouse,  St.  Peter's,  Isle  of  Thanct,  Sept.  27. 

Such  a  letter  was  a  trumpet-call  to  the  conscience  of  the  country. 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  553 

'  You  have  given  them  a  shot  between  wind  and  water,'  said  his 
friend,  Captain  Eastwick,  to  him  on  the  morning  when  it  appeared. 
The  effect  was  instantaneous.  It  was  shown  by  the  abuse  showered 
upon  him  in  the  speeches  of  platform  orators,  by  anonymous  and 
threatening  letters,  by  the  almost  savage  articles  of  the  Ministerial 
press,  no  less  than  by  the  private  letters  of  sympathy  which  came 
pouring  in  upon  him  from  men  of  every  shade  of  political  opinion, 
by  the  approving  articles  which  appeared  in  the  unattached  as  well 
as  the  Liberal  portion  of  the  press,  and  by  the  numerous  letters  to 
the  *  Times '  of  men  who  had  always  put  principle  above  party,  and 
morality  above  expediency — men  like  Lord  Shaftesbury,  Lord  Grey, 
and  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan.  The  influence  of  the  leading  journal 
was,  unfortunately,  at  that  time  given  in  support  of  the  aggressive 
policy.  But,  as  usual  in  matters  of  the  first  moment,  it  opened  its 
columns  freely  and  fairly  to  the  chief  disputants  on  either  side  of 
the  question,  and  the  letters  written  to  it  by  men  like  Lord  Law- 
rence, Lord  Grey,  Sir  John  Adye,  Sir  Charles  Trevelyan  on  one 
side,  and  by  Sir  James  Stephen,  Sir  Henry  Havelock,  and  General 
Hamley  on  the  other,  have  since  been  pubHshed  in  a  separate 
volume. 

Lord  Lawrence  wrote  five  letters  in  all.  His  second  letter  was, 
in  outward  form,  a  reply  to  one  of  Sir  James  Stephen.  It  is  much 
more  diffuse  than  the  author  would  have  probably  allowed  it  to  be 
had  he  enjoyed  the  use  of  his  own  hands  and  eyes.  But  it  disen- 
tangles with  such  masterly  skill  the  essence  from  the  accidents  of 
the  Afghan  quarrel,  and  is  so  comprehensive  and  so  elevated  in  its 
tone,  that,  compelled  as  I  am  to  make  a  selection  from  a  series 
of  letters,  every  one  of  which  is  worth  preserving,  I  quote  it  in 
full  :— 

Sir, — In  the  '  Times'  of  the  i6th  inst.  there  appears  an  elaborate  letter 
from  Sir  James  Stephen  which  seems  to  require  a  prompt  reply,  unless 
we  wish  the  present  movement  against  the  Ameer  of  Afglianistan  ;  or, 
in  other  words,  that  a  war  in  that  country,  should  be  allowed  to  proceed 
without  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  opposed  to  such  a  war 
to  arrest  it. 

In  that  letter,  seven  questions  are  proposed,  the  first  four  of  which  are 
ver)-  pertinent,  but  which  the  writer  seems  to  desire  to  leave  unanswered. 
The  first  of  these  questions,  the  full  materials  for  the  discussion  of  which 
Sir  J.  Stephen  says  are  not  before  the  public,  is  '  whether  the  conduct 
pursued  for  some  years  towards  the  Ameer  has  or  has  not  been  judi- 
cious ? '  Now,  if  this  question  be  put  aside  for  an  indefinite  period, 
under  the  above  plea,  much  injustice,  I  submit,  would  be  dealt  out  to 
Shere  Ali.     We  cannot  fairly  decide  whether  he  has  been  wrong  or  not 


554  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

in  refusinij  to  receive  our  Mission,  unless  we  can  give  due  weight  to  the 
reasons  which  may  be  adduced  for  his  not  doing  so.  Tiiough  complete 
information  may  not  be  before  us,  I  urge  that  there  is  ample  evidence 
to  enable  us  to  decide  whether  he  has  primd  facie  a  good  case  for  his 
conduct.  If  we  decide  that  he  had  reasonable  grounds  lor  the  line  he 
adopted,  fair  play  appears  to  me  to  demand  that  we  should  put  off  the 
war  against  him  until  we  have  the  materials  on  which  the  country  can 
finally  decide  as  to  his  conduct. 

Then  it  is  asked,  in  the  second  question,  'whether  the  Ameer  has  or 
has  not  grossly  insulted  a  British  Agent.'  And  it  is  asserted  that  this 
point  need  not  be  discussed.  But  surely  the  same  principle  which  is 
applicable  to  the  first  question  is  equally  so  to  the  second.  When  Sir 
J.  Stephen  wrote  his  letter,  the  belief  that  the  Ameer  had  grossly  insulted 
an  officer  of  the  Mission  had  been  spread  throughout  England,  and  had 
met  with  almost  universal  credence.  As  this  was  the  main  ground  of 
the  Ameer's  offence  for  which  war  was  to  be  declared  against  him, 
surely,  justice  demanded  that  the  statement  respecting  it  should  be 
clearly  proved.  The  question,  I  admit,  has  now  lost  its  importance,  and 
'  need  not  be  discussed, '  since  it  is  at  the  present  time  generally  con- 
ceded that  no  such  insult  was  committed,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  the 
Mission  was  received  by  Shere  All's  officer  at  Ali  Musjid  with  as  much 
courtesy  as  was  consistent  with  refusing  to  allow  it  to  proceed  towards 
Cabul.  Of  course,  the  point  whether  the  refusal  to  receive  a  Mission  at 
Cabul  is  casus  belli  against  the  Ameer  still  remains.  With  reference 
to  this,  I  cannot  yet  believe  but  that  my  countrymen,  who  pride  them- 
selves on  a  high  sense  of  honour  and  justice,  will  pronounce  that,  in  the 
circumstances  which  can  be  shown  to  exist,  the  Ameer  ought  to  be  held 
excused  for  his  present  conduct. 

The  third  question — '  whether  in  dealing  with  an  Asiatic  ruler  like 
Shere  Ali  the  common  rules  of  European  international  law  have  any  ap- 
plication whatever  ? ' — is  again  passed  over.  I  affirm  that  it  should  not 
be  so  treated.  If  international  law  has  no  application  in  this  case,  then 
what  is  the  law  or  principle  on  which  the  cause  between  Shere  Ali  and 
ourselves  is  to  be  tried  ?  Are  we  to  be  the  judges  in  our  own  cause  ? 
Are  we  to  decide  in  accordance  with  our  own  interests  .''  Is  this  an 
answer  which  Englishmen  will  give  in  so  grave  a  matter  ? 

The  fourth  question  is  a  very  large  one.  It  is  thus  stated  : — 'Whether 
in  any  circumstances  anything  can  be  gained  by  an  Afghan  war  ? '  And 
it  is  said  to  suggest  and  resolve  itself  into  three  other  questions — viz., 
'  Is  it  true  that  our  present  frontier  is  exceedingly  weak  ?  Is  it  true  that 
it  is  possible  to  make  it  as  strong  as  it  is  at  present  weak,  by  occupying 
military  positions  through  the  mountains,  and  by  establishing  satisfactory 
relations  with  the  mountain  tribes  ?  And  it  is  true  that,  whatever  may 
have  been  the  case  in  former  times,  the  advance  of  Russia  and  the  prob- 
ability of  a  Russian  and  Afghan  alliance  make  the  strengthening  ot  our 
frontier  (if  it  requires  strengthening  or  can  be  strengthened)  a  matter  of 
pressing  importance  ? '     In  answer,  my  humble  opinion  is  that  nothing 


1869-79  LAST   YEARS   OF  LORD   LAWRENCE.  555 

is  to  be  gained  by  an  Afghan  war,  more  especially  by  a  war  based  on 
such  a  cause  as  is  now  put  forward. 

Next,  I  do  not  admit  that  our  present  frontier  is  exceedingly  weak.  On 
the  contrary,  I  deem  it  a  frontier  which,  by  nature,  is  remarkably  strong  ; 
and  one  also  which,  if  necessary,  could  be  strengthened  at  a  moderate 
cost,  when  compared  with  what  a  new  line  of  frontier  in  an  advanced 
position  would  certainly  require.  But,  of  course,  this  is  mainly  a  military 
question.  Military  men  of  considerable  reputation  take  a  view  different 
from  mine.  But  there  are  and  have  been  military  men  of  at  least  as 
high  a  reputation  who  take  the  other  view.  It  seems  to  me  difficult  for 
any  observing  man  even  to  look  at  the  map  of  the  frontier  and  adjacent 
countries,  let  alone  having  seen  the  frontier,  and  to  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  it  is  not  a  strong  position.  All  the  country  within  the  border 
is,  as  it  were,  in  a  natural  fortress,  scarcely  accessible  to  attack,  and  com- 
paratively easy  to  be  defended  where  it  might  be  open  to  attack.  Then, 
as  regards  the  question,  '  Is  it  true  that  it  is  possible  to  make  it  as  strong 
as  it  is  at  present  weak  by  occupying  military  positions  through  the 
mountains  and  by  establishing  satisfactory  relations  with  the  mountain 
tribes  ?  '  my  reply  is  that  an  attempt  just  now  to  hold  the  long  extent  of 
defiles  and  passes  in  advance  of  the  present  border  would  not  increase 
but  diminish  its  strength  considerably.  To  occupy  these  lines  in  the 
hope  of  adding  largely  to  the  strength  of  our  frontier  would  require  very 
extensive  arrangements,  and  must  be  combined  with  measures  which 
had  previously  led  to  the  conciliation  or  subjugation  of  the  hill  tribes  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  passes.  Posts  to  contain  sufficient  garrisons  to  hold  salient 
points  in  these  defiles  and  to  protect  the  intervening  ground  would  have  to 
be  of  considerable  size.  We  must  also  further  bear  in  mind  that,  though 
the  great  passes  traversing  the  mountain  ranges  between  India  and  Cabul 
may  be  limited  to  three  or,  perhaps,  four,  there  are  others  through  or  over 
which  troops  lightly  equipped  could  move  without  much  difficulty,  so  as  to 
create  a  diversion.  In  many  instances  the  difficulties  of  want  of  water,  and 
that  of  securing  sites  which.while  commanding  the  pass  would  not  be  them- 
selves commanded  by  adjacent  positions,  would  be  very  serious.  I  would 
instance  the  case  of  the  Kohat  Pass,  which  is  only  ten  miles  long  or  there- 
abouts. After  Sir  Charles  Napier's  expedition  against  the  Afridis  in  that 
pass  in  1849-50  it  was  in  contemplation  to  fortify  it  and  hold  it  with  our 
own  troops  ;  but  the  idea  was  given  up  on  account  of  difficulties  of  the 
kind  I  have  mentioned.  Moreover,  there  is  no  reason  that  I  can  see 
that,  while  maintaining  our  present  frontier  as  the  base  of  our  opera- 
tions, we  should  not,  as  a  temporary  arrangement,  when  invasion  was 
imniinent,  occupy  certain  posts  in  advance,  so  as  to  command  the  defiles 
more  or  less,  as  has  been  often  done  in  other  countries  in  similar  cir- 
cumstances. Such  arrangements  would  have  the  advantage,  in  my 
mind,  of  being  less  irksome  to  the  tribes  in  the  vicinity,  and,  therefore, 
such  as  it  might  be  expected  that  they  would  readily  accede  to,  if  well 
paid  and  wisely  managed.  I  may  further  add  that  it  would  not  he  con- 
venient to  hold  these  posts  with  English  troops,  and,  therefore,  we  slioula 


556  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

have  to  t^arrison  them  with  native  soldiers  ;  and  to  this,  again,  there  are 
obvious  ol)jections  if  large  numbers  were  required.  This  brings  me  to 
the  last  part  of  the  query — as  to  'establishing  satisfactory  relations  with 
the  mountain  tril^es.'  This  would  be,  at  the  best,  a  work  of  time,  and 
must  prove  of  a  doubtful  character  ;  one  which,  however  carefully  and 
wisely  conducted,  might  at  a  critical  moment  break  down  ;  and  one, 
therefore,  which  no  prudent  man  would  rely  on.  Like  the  sons  of  Ish- 
mael,  the  nature  of  the  hill  tribes  is  for  every  man's  hand  to  be  against 
his  neighbour  ;  in  a  word,  they  are  a  poor,  predatory,  and  treacherous 
race,  who  delight  in  war  and  rapine  so  long  as  there  is  a  prospect  of  their 
thereby  benefiting.  These  tribes  are  calculated  to  turn  out  in  the  aggre- 
gate 100,000  fighting  men  ;  but,  assuming  that  they  could  not  gather  to- 
gether more  than  a  quarter  of  that  number,  it  would  be  a  very  serious 
matter  to  hold  a  long  line  of  defence  with  these  defiles  in  our  rear  liable 
to  be  beleaguered  by  such  fellows. 

We  then  come  to  the  question,  '  Is  it  true,  that  whatever  may  have 
been  the  case  in  former  times,  the  advance  of  Russia  and  the  probability 
of  a  Russian  and  Afghan  alliance  make  the  strengthening  of  our  frontier 
a  matter  of  pressing  importance  ?'  This  is  quite  true  ;  but  it  is  to  be 
done,  in  my  mind,  by  strengthening  our  present  frontier  rather  than  by 
extending  it  still  further.  On  this  point,  I  am  happy  to  think  that  Sir  J. 
Stephen  and  I  are  in  some  degree  in  accord  ;  for  he  appears  only  to  ad- 
vocate an  advance,  'subject  to  the  condition  that  some  way  of  establish- 
ing satisfactory  relations  with  the  frontier  tribes  can  be  devised  ;  for  if 
they  are  hostile,  any  advanced  posts  occupied  by  us  at  the  mouth  of  or 
beyond  the  passes,  would  be  in  a  critical  position.'  My  advice,  then,  is 
to  wait,  at  any  rate,  until  such  relations  have  been  established  in  a 
thoroughly  secure  manner. 

I  will  not  attempt  an  analysis  of  what  follows  in  this  letter  as  to  the 
analogy  between  the  position  of  the  Russians  in  Central  Asia  at  the  pres- 
ent time  and  that  of  the  English  in  India  in  the  early  days  of  the  century. 
Whatever  may  be  the  resemblance  between  the  two  conditions,  there  is 
this  great  difference, — that,  in  regard  to  the  conquests  of  England  in 
India  in  those  days,  the  people  were  generally  unwarlike,  and  the  country 
open  and  accessible,  while  Afghanistan  is  a  country  of  mountain  ranges, 
narrow  defiles,  and  valleys  limited  in  extent,  inhabited  by  a  warlike  race, 
who,  with  rare  exceptions,  have  for  centuries  maintained  their  independ- 
ence. Hindustan  in  the  days  adverted  to  by  Sir  J.  Stephen  had  been,  in 
the  first  instance,  overrun  and  plundered  by  invaders,  who  had  subse- 
quently quarrelled  among  themselves  and  engaged  in  mutual  destruction. 
The  people  of  the  country  had  risen  against  their  invaders,  in  many  cases 
successfully,  and  then  had  turned  their  arms  against  each  other.  The 
conquest  of  India  under  such  circumstances  was  not  a  difficult  task.  The 
condition  of  things  would  be  very  different  should  Russia  now  attempt 
to  invade  India.  She  would  have  to  meet  an  English  army  renowned 
through  every  part  of  the  world  for  resolution  and  tenacity  of  purpose, 
backed  by  a  force  of  native  troops  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  any  of  the 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  557 

kind  which  could  be  trained  and  brought  against  them.  I  say  nothing- 
of  the  difficulties  of  raising  money  adequate  for  such  an  emergency  which 
the  Russians  would  experience.  For  my  part,  I  should  have  no  doubt 
of  the  result  of  such  a  contest  in  these  circumstances. 

If,  however,  we  advance  into  Afghanistan,  we  shall,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, break  up  the  government  which  exists  there,  and  which  it  will  be 
impossible  for  us  to  replace — a  government  which,  with  all  its  faults,  is 
not  unsuited  to  the  people,  and  with  which  they  are  generally  content. 
We  shall  then  be  holding  the  country  with  the  inhabitants  sullen  and  dis- 
contented, and  the  chiefs  eager  to  throw  off  the  yoke  and  ready  to  join 
any  invader  who  can  hold  out  to  them  hopes  of  success. 

I  do  not,  for  one  moment,  look  with  indifference  on  the  state  of  things 
in  Central  Asia,  and  still  less  in  Afghanistan.  On  the  contrary,  I  do  so 
with  great  anxiety,  and  this  I  have  always  done.  But  I  feel  pretty  confi- 
dent that  we  shall  not  improve  our  position  by  going  to  war  with  the 
Afghans.  I  am  certain  that  we  shall  find,  when  it  is,  perhaps,  too  late, 
that  by  advancing  into  Afghanistan  we  shall  have  greatly  weakened 
our  position,  more  especially  as  I  anticipate  it  would  involve  our  re- 
maining there.  One  writer  quietly  contemplates  the  occupation  of 
Cabul,  Ghazni,  Candahar,  and  Herat.  Another,  not  content  with  this, 
advocates  a  further  advance,  so  as  to  hold  tKs  whole  country  from  the 
Pamir  steppes  on  the  north  to  the  Helmand  on  the  south.  A  third 
would  urge  us,  in  due  course  of  time,  to  cross  the  Oxus  and  drive  the 
Russians  out  of  Central  Asia,  and  has,  in  his  own  opinion,  strong  rea- 
sons for  such  movements.  Sir  J.  Stephen  is  apparently  content  with  the 
occupation  of  the  defiles  leading  up  to  Cabul  from  India.  Few,  how- 
ever, of  the  advocates  of  an  advance  would  limit  their  desires  to  that 
extent  ;  and,  to  say  the  truth,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  occupation  of  the 
passes  would  probably  require  an  advance  into  the  valleys  beyond. 

Time  will  not  admit  of  my  going  into  the  question  of  the  position  of 
Russia  in  Central  Asia.  I  do  not  myself  think  that  that  position  ought 
to  lead  them  to  advance  much  further.  Russia  has  already  probably  as 
good  a  boundary  in  the  line  of  the  Oxus  as  she  ought  to  desire.  I  do 
not  think  she  will  strengthen  her  tenure  of  the  country  she  now  occupies 
by  a  further  advance.  Should  she  extend  her  occupation  to  Afghanistan, 
she  will  most  probably  turn  the  Afghans  against  her,  for  the  same  rea- 
son that  our  occupation  of  that  country  would  turn  them  against  us. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  object  of  Russia  in  her  present  relations  with 
Shere  Ali  is  purely  commercial.  Doubtless  in  contracting  the  alliance 
with  Turkey,  in  occupying  Cyprus,  and  in  telling  the  whole  world  that 
we  were  ready  to  bar  the  way  of  Russia  on  the  Armenian  border,  we  did 
a  good  deal  to  aggravate  the  Russians.  They  are  now  paying  us  off  for 
this  policy  by  irritating  us  in  Afghanistan  ;  indeed,  we  have  heard  as 
much  in  some  of  the  Continental  papers.  But  the  point  is,  whether  by 
holding  our  own  frontier,  or  by  advancing  into  Afghanistan  and  break- 
ing to  pieces  the  Afghan  Government,  we  shall  improve  or  weaken  our 
position.     I  hold  to  the  latter  view. 


558  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

It  is  said  that  in  cases  wliere  tlie  honour  of  England  and  the  safety  of 
great  interests  belonging  to  it  are  concerned  neither  the  expenditure  of 
the  blood  of  our  countrymen  nor,  still  less,  that  of  large  sums  of  money, 
must  be  considered.  I  admit  there  are  such  circumstances,  but  not  in 
the  present  case.  I  hold,  therefore,  that  it  is  not  for  the  honour  of  England 
that  we  should  go  to  war  with  the  Afghans  because  they  will  not  receive 
our  Mission,  and  that  such  a  war  would  be  impolitic  and  unjust. 

I  have  said  little  on  the  cost  of  such  a  war.  We  have  been  told  that 
England  will  certainly  pay  a  considerable  portion  of  it  ;  but  there  seems 
no  certainty  on  this  point.  Judging  from  the  past,  it  seems  more  than 
probable  that  England  will  not  pay  such  a  portion  of  the  charges  as  the 
policy  of  India  renders  it  desirable  that  she  should  do.  Moreover, 
though  she  might  be  willing  to  pay  a  portion  of  the  extra  charges  of  a 
campaign,  she  would  probably  demur  to  making  good  an  adequate  share 
of  the  cost  of  the  occupation  of  Afghanistan  ;  and  to  how  long  this  may 
extend  no  man  can  foresee.  But,  whatever  may  be  decided  on  the  ques- 
tion of  division  of  expense  between  the  two  countries,  I  should  deplore, 
under  present  circumstances,  the  expenditure  of  any  large  sum  on  such 
a  war.  India  is  unable  to  bear  the  cost,  and  England  is  by  no  means 
in  a  condition  to  meet  it. 

In  conclusion,  I  may  add  what  I  had  almost  forgotten  to  say,  that  the 
causes  which  have  led  to  the  ill-will  of  Ameer  Shere  AH  towards  us  are 
patent  to  most  people  who  have  watched  the  proceedings  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  India  for  the  last  two  years  and  more.  In  the  '  Daily  News,' 
of  the  19th  inst.  there  appears  a  letter,  signed  '  Englishman,'  which  gives 
succinctly  the  causes  that  he  considers  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
Ameer's  alleged  feeling  against  us.  These  are  the  occupation  of  Quetta, 
the  pressure  put  on  the  Ameer  to  receive  English  officers  into  different 
places  in  Afghanistan,  the  granting  of  large  numbers  of  arms  of  precision 
to  the  Maharaja  of  Cashmere  with  instructions  to  push  forward  troops 
for  the  occupation  of  the  passes  leading  to  Chitral,  the  embargo  placed 
on  the  export  of  warlike  stores  and  the  like  from  India  to  Cabul,  and  also 
the  aggressive  tone  of  the  Press  in  India  towards  the  Ameer.  On  this 
subject  I  spoke  strongly  in  the  House  of  Lords  in  June  of  last  year,  but 
with  very  little  result.  At  the  same  lime  I  pressed  on  the  Government 
the  propriety  of  giving  to  the  country  a  copy  of  the  papers  connected  with 
Sir  Lewis  Pelly"s  conference  with  the  Ameer's  agent  at  Peshawur. 
These  papers,  I  understand,  were  subsequently  promised  at  the  urgent 
request  of  some  members  of  the  House  of  Commons.  But  up  to  this 
time,  as  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  that  promise  has  not  been  fulfilled.  If 
we  are  to  wait  for  all  the  facts  connected  with  these  transactions  until  it 
may  be  the  pleasure  of  the  Government  to  grant  them,  we  might,  in  the 
interim,  invade  Cabul,  destroy  the  government  of  the  Ameer,  and  then 
be  told  that  the  time  was  past  for  examining  into  the  merits  of  the  ques- 
tion. Thus,  in  one  of  the  leading  articles  of  the  'Times'  we  were  lately 
told  that  it  was  no  use  inquiring  into  any  of  the  circumstances  con- 
nected with  the  present  state  of  feeling  at  Cabul   prior  to  the  21st  of 


1869-79        LAST   YEARS   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  559 

September,  the  day  on  which  our  Mission  was  turned  back  at  Ali 
Musjid.  Lastly,  I  deliberately  affirm  that  the  friendly  policy  which  was 
formerly  observed  by  the  Government  of  India  towards  the  Afghans  did. 
bear  most  excellent  fruit,  as  is  well  shown  by  Major-General  Sir  John 
Adye's- letter  in  the  '  Times  '  of  the  i8th  inst.  We  had  in  those  days  no 
intrigues  between  the  Ameer  and  Russia,  no  rumours  of  passionate  ex- 
pressions of  feeling  against  us  on  his  part,  and  no  accounts  of  attempts 
to  get  up  a  Jihad,  or  religious  war,  against  the  infidels. 

Yours  faithfully, 

Lawrence, 
Stonehouse,  St.  Peter's,  Isle  of  Thanet,  Oct.  19. 

A  feAv  sentences  must  also  be  preserved  from  his  subsequent 
letters  : — 

October  24. 

So  far  as  diplomacy,  and  diplomacy  alone  is  concerned,  we  should  do 
all  in  our  power  to  induce  the  Afghans  to  side  with  us.  We  ought  not 
in  my  mind  to  make  an  offensive  and  defensive  treaty  with  them.  This 
has  been  for  many  years  their  desire  ;  but  the  argument  against  it  is  that 
if  we  made  such  a  treaty  we  should  be  bound  to  restrain  them  from  any 
attacks  on  their  neighbours,  and  to  resent  such  assaults  on  them,  while  it 
would  be  next  to  impossible  for  us  to  ascertain  the  merits  of  such  com- 
plaints. We  should  thus  constantly  find  ourselves  in  a  position  to  please 
neither  party,  and  even  bound  to  defend  causes  in  which  the  Afghans 
were  to  blame. 

October  30. 

The  pressing  question  is  whether  the  Ameer  was  not  justified  in,  or, 
at  any  rate,  has  not  extenuating  circumstances  to  plead  for,  his  refusal 
to  receive  our  mission.  If  he  has,  and  I  believe  that  he  has,  then  I  affirm 
that  we  ought  to  suspend  military  operations  against  him  and  his  country, 
until  it  can  be  fairly  shown  that  the  justification  which  is  pleaded  for  him 
has  no  solid  basis.  If  we  declare  war  against  the  Ameer  we  shall,  in 
all  probability,  destroy  him,  or  drive  him  from  his  country  and  subvert 
his  Government,  before  we  are  assured  that  he  deserves  this  at  our 
hands  ;  and  should  we,  in  the  end,  find  that  we  were  much  to  blame  in 
the  course  we  had  pursued,  we  shall  then  feel  that  we  have  done  3,  great 
wrong  which  it  will  be  impossible  to  repair. 

And  here,  once  more,  in  his  last  letter,  more  especially  in  its  last 
words,  is  the  gist  of  the  whole  business  : — 

I  have  tried  to  keep  the  military  considerations  connected  with  the 
present  North-West  frontier  as  separate  as  I  well  could  from  those  of  a 
political  character.  Rut  the  arguments  bearing  on  the  subject  are  so 
interwoven  that  it  is  difficult  to  do  so  thoroughly.  I  am  conscious  that 
I  have  mixed  them  more  than  I  could  wish.     One  of  the  greatest,  per- 


560  LIFE   OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

haps  the  greatest,  objection  attending-  'the  rectification  of  the  frontier' — 
which  I  understand  to  mean  taking  a  further  portion  of  Afghan  territory 
and  annexing  it  to  our  possessions — is  based  on  pohtical  and  moral 
grounds.  The  greatest  captain  of  modern  times  is  said  to  have  affirmed 
that,  even  in  war,  the  moral  as  compared  with  the  military  side  was  3  to 
I.  Now,  without  affirming  this  to  be  the  case,  political  and  moral  con- 
siderations ought  to  be  deemed  of  the  greatest  weight.  As  time  rolls 
on,  when  the  desolation  caused  by  war  has  been  long  obliterated,  the 
passions  which  a  sense  of  wrong  has  aroused  do  not  cease  to  burn  but 
pass  on  from  one  generation  to  another.  The  Afghan  is  courageous, 
hardy,  and  independent  ;  the  country  he  lives  in  is  strong  and  sterile  in 
a  remarkable  degree,  extraordinarily  adapted  for  guerilla  warfare  ;  these 
people  will  never  cease  to  resist  so  long  as  they  have  a  hope  of  success, 
and,  when  beaten  down,  they  have  that  kind  of  elasticity  which  will  ever 
lead  them  to  renew  the  struggle  whenever  opportunity  of  so  doing  may 
occur.  If  we  enter  Afghanistan,  whether  it  be  to  punish  the  people  for 
the  alleged  faults  of  their  chiefs  or  to  rectify  our  frontier,  they  will,  as- 
suredly, do  all  in  their  power  to  resist  us.  We  want  them  as  friends  and 
not  as  enemies.  In  the  latter  category,  they  are  extremely  dangerous  to 
us.  However  disagreeable  to  our  pride  and  self-esteem,  we  must  '  try 
back,'  and  endeavour  to  adopt  a  wiser  policy.  We  made  a  treaty  with 
them,  we  bound  ourselves  to  respect  their  territory,  and  even  though  we 
would  not  bind  ourselves  in  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance,  we  gave 
them  to  understand  that  we  would  take  a  great  interest  in  their  inde- 
pendence, and  would  look  with  severity  on  any  attempt  to  injure  them. 
This  seems  to  be  a  good  basis  on  which  to  endeavour  to  build  up  amica- 
ble relations.  At  any  rate,  by  such  a  line  of  conduct  we  should  leave 
no  sting  behind. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  financial  state  of  the  case.  This  has  been  well 
described  by  Mr.  Fawcett.  The  expenses  of  an  invasion,  and  still  more 
of  holding  Afghanistan,  must  prove  enormous.  All  this  has  been  dex- 
terously thrown  aside  by  the  advocates  of  retaliation  and  war.  The 
expenses  of  the  Afghan  war  of  1838-42  were  very  large,  and  those  for 
the  impending  war  must  prove  greater.  We  have  not  yet  heard  a  word 
as  to  who  is  to  bear  them.  I,  for  one,  do  not  believe  that  the  people  of 
England  will  endure  them,  and  as  for  the  inhabitants  of  India,  they  are 
already,  in  my  judgment,  taxed  beyond  the  public  burdens  which  they 
ought  to  bear.  For  the  most  part  simple  and  abstemious  in  their  habits, 
they  can  live  on  little  ;  but  there  is  a  point  beyond  which  even  they  cannot 
maintain  themselves.  Many  of  the  richer  classes  do  not  bear  their  fair 
proportion  of  the  taxation  of  the  countiy,  and  thus  the  confiition  of  the 
rest  of  the  people  is  more  wretched  than  it  ought  to  be.  The  droughts 
and  famines  in  many  parts  of  the  country  of  late  years  have  caused 
great  misery,  and  some  of  the  prime  necessaries  of  life  cost  more  than 
the  labours  of  the  lower  classes  can  afford.  To  increase  the  taxation  in 
such  circumstances  must  have  a  tendency  to  render  the  masses  of  the 
people  almost  desperate.     Is  tliis  the  time  for  spending  millions  of  money 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS  OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  561 

in  a  war  for  which  we  cannot  even  produce  a  reasonable  pretext  ?  for  a 
war  the  evidence  for  which  we  are  ashamed  to  produce  ? 

Yours  faithfully, 

Lawrence. 
Stonehouse,  St.  Peter's,  Isle  of  Thanet :  November  18. 

Nor  was  Lord  Lawrence  content  merely  to  write  letters  or  to 
hold  conferences  with  his  friends,  private  and  political,  upon  this 
burning  matter.  Finding  that  the  papers  which  it  was  supposed 
by  some  credulous  people  might  in  some  measure  justify  our  con- 
duct, were  still  withheld  by  Government ;  that  military  prepara- 
tions were  proceeding  apace  ;  and  that  Lord  Lytton  was  disposed 
to  go  to  war  even  in  advance  of  them,  he  became  chairman  of  a 
Committee  composed  of  men  of  every  phase  of  political  opinion, 
and  especially  of  men  who  were  strong  in  their  Indian  experience 
and  reputation.  Its  chief  object  was  to  bring  pressure  upon  the 
Government  to  postpone  the  actual  commencement  of  hostilities 
till  explicit  orders  had  been  sent  from  home  to  that  effect ;  till  the 
papers  had  been  produced,  and  till  the  Ameer  should  have  had  one 
chance  more  of  making  an  apology  or  an  explanation.  If  only  jus- 
tice were  done,  Lord  Lavvrence  thought  that  explanations  and  apol- 
ogies would  not  be  all  on  one  side. 

On  the  9th  of  November,  Lord  Beaconsfield  had  startled  his 
colleagues  and  his  supporters  hardly  less  than  his  opponents,  by 
the  announcement  at  the  Mansion  House,  that  the  war  which  was 
about  to  begin  had  been  undertaken  not  to  punish  the  Ameer  for 
his  reception  of  the  Russian,  and  his  refusal  to  receive  an  English 
mission,  but  for  a  rectification  of  boundary,  for  the  substitution,  as 
he  called  it,  of  a  scientific  for  a  haphazard  frontier.  The  idea  was 
not,  I  believe,  his  own  but  General  Colley's.  The  brave  soldier 
whose  opinion  on  the  Afghan  frontier  was,  in  Lord  Lytton's 
opinion,  '  equal  to  that  of  twenty  Lawrences,'  had  somehow  con- 
trived to  produce  a  like  effect  upon  the  clear  or  the  temporarily 
clouded  intellect  of  a  yet  higher  authority,  and  the  war  hencefor- 
ward was  declared,  on  that  higher  authority,  to  be  distinctly  for 
aggressive  purposes. 

On  the  i6th  of  the  same  month,  Lord  Lawrence,  as  Chairman  of 
'  the  Afghan  Committee,'  wrote  to  Lord  Beaconsfield  asking  him  to 
receive  a  deputation  on  the  earliest  possible  day.  Lord  Beacons- 
field curtly  declined  the  interview.  *  It  was  rendered  unnecessary,* 
he  said,  'by  the  copious  explanations  of  their  views  with  which 
Lord  Lawrence  and  his  friends  had  recently  favoured  the  country, 
and,  as  for  the  papers  which  he  asked  for,  they  would  be  found, 

VOL.  II. — 36 


562  LIFE    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

when  they  were  produced,  to  begin  from  an  earHer  date  than  that 
of  Lord  Lytton's  Viceroyalty.'  It  was  hardly  necessary  for  Lord 
Lawrence  to  remark  in  reply, 'There  is  no  transaction  which  has 
passed  between  the  Afghan  Government  and  myself  in  former  days 
which  I  am  not  willing  should  be  known  throughout  the  breadth 
and  length  of  the  land.' 

Early  in  December,  Parliament  met  to  consider  the  question. 
But  it  was  too  late.  The  conclusion  was  foregone.  We  had  in- 
vaded Afghanistan,  had  beaten  down,  as  Lord  Lawrence  said  we 
should,  all  resistance,  and  had  driven  the  Ameer,  who  had  written 
that  most  touching  letter  on  Lord  Mayo's  death,  from  his  country 
to  die  in  misery  and  in  exile.  In  vain  were  the  abounding  knowl- 
edge and  authority  of  Lord  Lawrence,  the  experience  of  Lord 
Northbrook  so  recently  gathered  upon  the  spot,  the  official  weight 
and  position  of  Lord  Halifax,  the  independence  of  Lord  Grey,  the 
cool  judgment  and  high  morality  of  Lord  Derby  and  Lord  Car- 
narvon, brought  to  bear  upon  the  question.  They  could  not  undo 
what  had  been  done,  even  if  they  could  have  hoped,  by  weight  of 
argument,  to  influence  the  serried  ranks  of  those  who  were  pre- 
pared, under  all  circumstances,  to  vote  as  they  were  bidden.  The 
utmost  that  they  could  do,  from  a  practical  point  of  view,  was  to 
urge  the  Government  to  as  early  and  as  equitable  a  conclusion  of 
the  war  as  possible. 

That  conclusion,  or  rather  a  conclusion  of  some  kind,  soon  came. 
We  had  shattered  the  Government  of  Shere  Ali — the  only  strong 
Government  that  was  possible  in  Afghanistan — into  pieces.  We 
had  prepared  a  new  series  of  civil  wars  for  his  unhappy  country, 
and  it  was  necessary  before  we  could  retire,  either  with  decency  or 
safety,  behind  our  new  scientific  frontier,  to  find  somebody  to  put 
in  his  place,  a  man  who  would  come  into  our  terms,  and  who,  by 
the  mere  fact  of  doing  so,  must  make  it  impossible  for  him,  when 
once  we  had  retired,  to  rule  the  country  with  vigour,  even  if  he 
could  manage  to  retain  his  life.  Yakub  Khan,  'the  ill-starred 
wretch,'  the  persecuted  son  of  Shere  Ali,  lay  readiest  to  our  hand. 
The  treaty  of  Gundamuck  was,  of  course,  readily,  or  even  greedily 
signed  by  him,  and  the  two  objects  of  the  war,  the  permanent  sta- 
tioning of  an  English  embassy  at  Cabul,  and  the  permanent  posses- 
sion of  a  scientific  frontier,  were  secured — secured,  that  is,  for  a 
month  or  two. 

There  were  universal  rejoicings,  among  those  who  had  promoted 
the  war,  over  a  victory  which  had  been  so  cheaply  purchased,  and 
Lord  Lawrence  was  proved  by  the  result  to  be  doubly    wrong, 


1869-79  LAST   YEARS   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  563 

wrong  in  his  premises  and  wrong  also  in  his  conclusions.  Was  he 
wrong,  and  how  did  he  regard  the  treaty  ?  '  I  fear,'  he  said,  '  it 
can  end  in  nothing  but  evil  to  us.'  And  when  he  heard  that,  by- 
one  of  its  articles,  it  was  stipulated  that  General  Cavignari  should 
remain  with  his  escort  at  Cabul,  '  they  will  all  be  murdered,'  he 
exclaimed,  '  every  one  of  them.'  And  they  were  murdered,  every 
one  of  them,  and  the  very  notion  of  having  an  embassy  at  Cabul, 
and  of  retaining  the  '  scientific  frontier,'  were,  ultimately,  aban- 
doned for  ever  by  those  who  had  started  them.  But  another  war 
was  necessary  ;  and  a  proclamation  that  we  would  hang  upon  the 
scaffold  those  who  fought  against  us  for  their  hearths  and  homes, 
was  deemed  to  be  necessary  ;  and  a  winter  at  Cabul  was  necessary, 
during  a  large  portion  of  which  our  troops  were  penned  in  their 
fortified  camp,  a  pitched  battle  at  Maiwand  was  necessary,  in 
which,  for  almost  the  first  time  in  British  history,  a  large  English 
army  was  defeated  in  the  open  field,  and  put  to  flight  by  these 
despised  Afghans  ;  and  when  General  Roberts'  brilliant  march  and 
victory  enabled  us  to  flatter  ourselves  that  we  had  wiped  out  the 
memory  of  our  disgrace,  it  was  necessary  for  us  to  find  or  to  make 
another  king,  and  we  fished  out  a  Russian  pensioner,  whom  we 
straightway  put  upon  the  throne,  to  oppose  Russian  aggression  !" 
And  then,  the  Government  which  had  succeeded  by  no  fault  of  their 
own  to  the  heritage  of  wrong  that  had  been  left  them  by  their 
predecessors,  did  the  best  that  they  could  under  the  circumstan- 
ces by  retiring  from  the  scene  of  our  sin  and  shame,  and  we  now 
have  the  satisfaction  of  feeling  that  we  have  thrown  away  twenty 
millions  of  money,  and  thousands  of  lives,  and  the  plighted  word  of 
successive  Viceroys,  and  the  solemn  pledges  of  treaties,  in  pursuit 
of  a  scientific  frontier  which  has  vanished  clean  away,  and  is  never 
spoken  of  but  with  derision  ;  that  we  have  turned  the  whole  Afghan 
nation  into  our  deadly  foes  ;  and  that  we  have  not  stopped  the 
march  of  Russia  towards  India  by  one  single  day. 

*  You  may  do  your  worst ! '  such  was  the  solemn  exclamation  of 
the  Ameer  Shere  Ali,  when  he  received  the  high-handed  summons 
of  Lord  Lytton,  'but  the  issue  is  in  the  hands  of  God.'  And  they 
were  words  which  might  have  made  even  Lord  Lytton  think 
seriously  of  what  he  was  about  to  do.  *  The  first  Afghan  war,' 
says  Sir  John  Kaye,  its  historian,  in  summing  up  his  judgment  upon 
the  whole,  '  was  in  principle  and  in  act  an  unrighteous  usurpation, 
and  the  curse  of  God  was  upon  it  from  the  first.  Our  successes,  at 
the  outset,  were  a  part  of  the  curse.  They  lai)ped  us  into  false 
security,  and  deluded  us  to  our  overthrow.'     This  is  the  great  le.sson 


564  LIFE   OF    LORD   LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

to  be  learnt  from  the  contemplation  of  the  Afghan  war.  '  The 
Lord  God  of  recompenses  will  surely  requite.'  May  we  not,  those 
at  least  of  us  who  still  believe  in  a  Providence  and  in  a  God,  say 
the  same,  word  for  word,  of  the  second  Afghan  war  ?  '  Righteous- 
ness exalteth  a  nation,  but  sin  is  the  reproach  of  any  people. ' 

But  Lord  Lawrence  was  not  destined  to  have  the  infinite  pain  of 
seeing  his  worst  forebodings  fulfilled,  or  the  infinite  satisfaction  of 
seeing  the  unrighteous  policy  reversed,  and  the  Ministry  which  had 
embarked,  under  the  same  sinister  auspices,  on  almost  equally  un- 
just wars  in  Asia  and  in  Africa,  swept  from  power  by  the  whirl- 
Avind  of  popular  indignation,  which  broke  forth,  when  once  the 
national  conscience  had  been  aroused  to  what  had  been  done.  As 
long  ago  as  the  summer  of  the  preceding  year  there  had  been  those 
about  Lord  Lawrence  who  had  begun  to  have  vague  fears  about 
him.  He  had  often  told  his  friend  Captain  Eastwick  that  he  felt 
his  days  were  numbered,  and  some  of  those  who  saw  most  of  him 
think  that  he  might  then  have  passed  away  quietly  to  his  rest,  had 
not  his  energies  been  once  more  aroused  by  the  thought  that  there 
was  still  something  for  him  to  do  in  the  world.  Once  more,  per- 
haps, as  I  have  ventured  to  suppose  may  have  been  the  case  in  his 
earlier  life,  when  he  seemed  to  be  at  the  point  of  death,  the  thought 
may  have  occurred  to  him  that 

.  .    .  Something  ere  the  end, 
Some  work  of  noble  note  may  yet  be  done 
Not  unbecoming-  men  who  strove  with  gods. 

At  all  events,  he  seemed  to  take  a  new  lease  of  life  from  the  mo- 
ment when  he  heard  of  the  turning  back  of  Cavignari's  mission,  and 
determined  to  throw  himself  into  the  breach,  if,  haply,  he  might 
still  stop  the  Afghan  war. 

Throughout  that  autumn  and  the  early  winter  Lord  Lawrence 
worked  away  at  his  self-imposed  mission  with  his  old  unconquera- 
ble energy.  He  was  able  to  dine  out  occasionally  ;  he  saw  much 
of  his  friends  ;  and  it  was  my  happiness  during  these  few  months, 
on  several  occasions  to  have  lengthened  conversations  with  him. 
He  paid  one  flying  visit  to  Edinburgh,  and  another  to  Manchester 
on  business,  accompanied  in  each  case  by  his  ever  faithful  com- 
panion, who  rarely  let  him  go  out  of  her  sight,  and  never  left  him  for 
more  than  an  hour  or  two  together,  except  on  one  occasion,  when 
she  was  summoned  to  Windsor  to  receive  the  Order  of  the  Star  of 
India  from  the  hands  of  the  Queen.  In  May  Lord  Lawrence  was 
present  at  an  event  which  gave — and  with  good  reason — unmixed 


1869-79  LAST    YEARS    OF    LORD    LAWRENCE.  565 

satisfaction  to  him  and  to  all  the  family,  the  marriage  of  his  second 
son  Henry  Arnold  to  Constance  Davies.  He  made  a  speech  at  the 
wedding  breakfast,  and  nobody  then  observed  any  sign  of  his  ap- 
proaching end. 

One  day,  early  in  June,  he  ventured  out  in  heavy  rain,  and  caught 
a  chill  which  settled  heavily  on  the  weaker  organs  of  his  body. 
Partially  recovering,  he  insisted  on  going  down,  on  the  19th  of  the 
month,  to  the  House  of  Lords,  that  he  might  take  part  in  the 
debate  on  the  Indian  Budget.  His  eldest  son,  who  usually  attended 
him  on  these  occasions,  happened  to  be  engaged,  and  there  was 
some  difficulty  in  finding  anyone  to  accompany  him.  '  Don't  send 
for  Eastwick,'  he  said,  '  for  he  is  sure  to  come,  whatever  it  costs 
him.'  '  It  is  a  speech,'  said  Captain  Eastwick  when  it  was  reported 
to  him,  'which  I  value  more  than  a  thousand  pounds.'  Lord  Law- 
rence went  down  to  the  House,  but  he  proved  to  be  quite  unequal 
to  the  exertion.  He  had  prepared  his  speech  with  more  than  usual 
care.  In  fact,  it  had  been  a  great  labour  to  him,  but  his  voice  was 
almost  inaudible,  and,  to  his  great  distress,  he  was  unable  to  say 
much  that  he  had  wished.  He  was  able,  however,  to  deliver  a 
protest  against  the  repeal  of  the  cotton  duties,  which  he  thought  to' 
be  a  needless  remission  of  revenue  made  at  the  wrong  time,  and 
made  also  in  the  interest  of  English  manufacturers,  rather  than  of 
India.  He  also  denounced  the  new  license  tax  as  an  impost  which 
pressed  too  heavily  on  the  poorer  classes.  On  his  return,  very  late, 
to  his  home  he  looked  exceedingly  fatigued  and  exhausted.  He  had 
been  so  anxious  to  hear  the  whole  debate  that  he  would  not  leave 
the  House  of  Lords  to  get  dinner,  and  had  afterwards  driven  home 
in  a  Hansom  cab,  arriving  thoroughly  chilled  from  the  night  air, 
after  the  heated  atmosphere  in  which  he  had  been  for  so  many 
hours.     It  was  his  last  visit  to  the  House  of  Lords. 

'  The  next  day,'  writes  Miss  Gaster,  '  during  his  walk,  he  said  to 
me,  "I  feel  so  worn  out,  I  can  hardly  stagger  along."  And  this 
was  literally  the  case.  Seeing  how  tired  and  thirsty  he  seemed ' — 
I  have  referred  to  this  incident  before,  but  need  not  apologise  for 
telling  it  in  full  here  again,  in  its  right  place — '  and  as  we  happened 
to  be  passing  a  shop  full  of  splendid  fruit,  I  proposed  that  we  should 
go  in  and  buy  some  strawberries.  A  basket  of  the  most  tempting 
description  was  offered  to  us  ;  but  alas  !  the  price  was  exorbitant, 
owing  to  the  season  being  a  very  late  one.  "  Spend  ten  shillings 
on  myself  for  such  a  purpose  !  "  he  said,  "  I  never  did  such  a  thing 
in  my  life,"  and  we  went  away  without  them.'  In  the  afternoon  of 
the   same  day,  he   managed  to  go  with   Captain  Eastwick   to  the 


566  LIFE  OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  1869-79 

asylum  for  the  orphan  daughters  of  soldiers  at  Hampstead,  an  in- 
stitution in  which  he  had  always  taken  a  great  interest.  It  was  the 
anniversary  festival,  and  the  Duke  of  Connaught  was  to  preside, 
while  the  Duchess  was  to  distribute  the  prizes.  After  the  cere- 
mony was  over  he  proposed  a  vote  of  thanks  to  the  Duchess,  and 
had  a  friendly  conversation  with  her  and  with  the  Duke.  He  had 
been  much  interested,  I  may  mention  here,  in  the  case  of  a  soldier's 
child  whose  mother  had  recently  died.  On  being  asked,  whilst 
dying,  to  whose  care  she  would  leave  her  children,  she  replied,  '  I 
have  nobody  belonging  to  me,  but  if  Lord  Lawrence  knew  that  I 
had  been  trained  in  the  "Lawrence  Asylum,"  I  am  sure  that  he 
would  not  let  my  children  starve.'  This  remark,  her  brother,  a 
tailor,  wrote  to  Lord  Lawrence,  and  her  faith  was  amply  rewarded, 
for  besides  contributing  to  the  support  of  the  children  for  the  time 
being,  he  did  not  rest  until  both  were  settled  in  homes.  A  grate- 
ful letter  of  thanks  from  the  poor  tailor,  praying  for  the  long  life 
of  Lord  Lawrence,  arrived  just  before  his  benefactor  breathed  his 
last. 

On  the  following  morning,  Sunday,  he  fell  asleep  almost  immedi- 
ately after  breakfast — a  very  unusual  thing  with  him — and  he  was 
unable  to  go  to  church.  His  wife  stayed  at  home  with  him,  and 
though  she  then  little  thought  how  soon  the  conflict  was  to  be 
fought  and  the  victory  won,  she  happened  to  read  aloud  to  him  a 
sermon  of  Robertson's  on  the  '  Victory  over  Death,'  with  which  he 
seemed  greatly  struck.  He  brightened  up  in  the  afternoon,  con- 
versed with  the  large  family  party  who  were  staying  in  the  house, 
and  was  able  to  receive  his  friends  as  usual. 

On  Monday,  he  was  rather  better,  and  was  able  to  attend  to  busi- 
ness, but  on  Tuesday  morning  a  strange  drowsiness  came  on,  which 
never  again  quite  left  him.  He  fell  asleep  after  breakfast,  but  in- 
sisted on  going  down  at  noon  to  a  business  meeting  in  the  City. 
During  his  absence,  Lady  Lawrence  seized  the  opportunity  of 
going,  unknown  to  him,  to  Dr.  Kidd,  and  telling  him  of  the  symp- 
toms. Dr.  Kidd  thought  them  serious,  and  wished  to  see  him,  but 
when  Captain  Eastwick,  on  Lord  Lawrence's  return,  urged  him  to 
send  for  a  doctor,  he  only  said,  with  a  pleasant  smile,  '  I  see  my 
wife  has  been  putting  you  up  to  that ;  there  is  no  need  for  it.'  In 
the  afternoon  he  was  able  to  see  some  friends.  Dr.  Kennedy,  his 
brother-in-law,  among  the  number,  and  they  even  arranged  to  go 
together  to  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  following  Thursday.  Dur- 
ing all  that  night,  his  wife  watched  by  his  bedside.  He  was  sick 
several  times  and  very  drowsy. 


1869-79  LAST   YEARS   OF   LORD   LAWRENCE.  567 

On  Wednesday  morning,  he  was  too  weak  to  leave  his  bed,  but 
he  seemed  to  enjoy  having  the  newspapers  read  to  him.  He  spoke 
little,  and  then  only  to  ask  for  water.  Everything  in  the  shape  of 
food  was  rejected,  and  the  strong  remedies  ordered  by  Dr.  Kidd 
produced  hardly  any  amelioration  of  the  symptoms. 

On  Thursday  morning,  he  just  asked  what  news  there  was  in  the 
papers  ;  and  this  was  the  last  question  on  public  affairs  which  he 
was  to  put  to  anyone.  From  that  time  till  about  10.30  p.m.  on 
Friday,  he  was  engaged  with  the  last  enemy,  who  was  no  king  of 
terrors  to  him. 

On  Friday  morning  those  who  had  clung  most  to  hope  saw  that 
the  end  was  drawing  near.  The  few  absent  members  of  his  family 
who  were  within  reach  were  summoned  to  his  side.  The  once 
strong  man  lay  helpless  on  his  bed,  seldom  opening  his  eyes  and, 
apparently,  unable  to  speak  or  to  recognise  anyone.  *  Do  you 
know  me  ?  '  whispered  his  wife.  *  To  my  last  gasp,  my  darling,' 
he  replied  quite  audibly  ;  and  as  she  bent  down  to  give  him 
her  last  kiss,  she  felt  the  last  pressure  of  his  lips  and  hands  : 
'I  am  so  weary  ;  '  such  were  the  words  which  those  who  stood 
around  his  bed  heard  him  murmuring  to  himself  as  he  was  entering 
the  land  where  the  weary  are  at  rest. 

So  lived  and  so  died  John  Lawrence. 


